Top notch pickers!

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Big fat hello to everyone!

I'm officially freezing my melons off on this crazy island of the devil! Wow - had no idea it got so stupidly cold - Trevor does his best to keep us both warm - he is a Starwagon Express but a coold metal van none the less!

Right what stories can i frantically scribble in 10 minutes? Been a while since my last blog i know but we've been picking like ninjas lately - just finished a 13 day picking marathon - that's 13 days snipping, ZERO days off! Good times! We were promised a day off after the 8th day in the vines... needless to say we both got ridiculously excited - even went for wetties on the beach... and then got the call at around 5 - it was Fred, what a gem, telling us of the 'small' pick that he had lined up for the following day! The small pick turned out to be not so small and our day off was history! We then had to go away on 'picking camp' for 3 days - wasn't really a camp as such but we were working at a vineyard which was a good 45min drive away for 3 days in a row - Fred kindly said we could camp at teh vineyard - a lovely home for 3 days with a fancy longdrop thrown in for good times! we headed for the beach instead - still no shower in sight but least the bogs were one step up from the longdrop in the vines!! It turned out to be quite good fun in the end - we set up camp with our Welsh companions -Tom and John - and Alister - the bat-sh*t-crazy Tasmanian! Wow he is a real character - Gail the crackers French bet also stayed for the 2nd night so we were quite the picking party! i speak of this 'picking camp' but Slime and I pretty much camp every night - just depends on where Trevor is keen on napping and if we're lucky enough to have a shower! Showers are key as we are both usually smelling pretty tangy when fresh from the vines! Slime took off his picking boots the other eve and I almost cried - oh the grape stench - it was quite spectacular!

Hmmmm - don't really have that much to report - Trevor is still beetling along like a boeing - although we did have a small hic-cup! His oil light had been flashing - for quite a while in fact... it was obviousl that he had a faulty cable but i decided to make Sime (the trusty mechanic) check the oil just to be sure... he did just that and assured me that Trevor was swimming in the greasy goodness. So on we trundled... the other day when we beetled off to the far-away vineyard for 3 days, his light was no longer flashing, it was permanently on. Lucky for us, John, one of the singing Welsh lads is an A1 mechanic, so we got him to take a look. Trevor had not a drop of oil!! Go Sime - so we gave him a good feed and all of a sudden his faulty light was fixed! Wow, we are such idiots! Thank goodness for John - and we only had to pay him in cookies - he's a big fan! He'll also prove all kinds of handy if we decide to emabark on our next adventure which involves a monumental road trip through the centre of Oz - past the big red rock - all the way to Broome! yip - the grapes are starting to run dry so by the end of next week i think we'll be hanging up the snips...hence the plan to go pearling in Broome where it's 30'C and not 3! we'll see though - it's a long shot but the Welsh are keen so least Trevor will have a companion and we'll have a bonus mechanic - should our oil light play up again!

Um and that's about it really - i'm afraid all we do is pick, shower (if we're lucky), munch, sleep and repeat the process! Which is why i don't have that many thrilling a tale to tell! We have a relly nice team of trusty pickers though so it's always a good laugh - usual day kicks off at 8 - you have 'Smoke-O' at about 10:30, lunch at 12:30, another 'Smoke-O' at 3ish and head back to Trevor at around 4/4:30. If we're lucky we're picking pinot which is red - the green beasts are such buggers to spot in the vines - all in all i just wish they didn't grow so close to the ground and always on a hill!! Still no devils spotted and no wombats either (my favourite) - weird hopping rat like creature - much bigger than a rat and with a long snout - often pays us a visit during dinner time - oh my and the huntsman! forgot about that beast - darn 8-legged beast managed to sneak it's way into Trevor! NOT STOKED! Good thing Sime loves spiders so much too - we must have looked quite the pair getting the hairy creature to evacuate - luckily Sime grew some gonads and managed a well-timed flick and we were back to being me Sime and the kids - and the weird hopping rat like guy!

OK - going to stop rambling now! All in all we're just dandy - fairly crazy adventure but loving it as always. we'll be back in Melbourne in about 2 weeks or so, so hopefully i can upload some picking pics! big fat happy birthday to Sarone - happy happy monk! And you too Clarence - for Thursday! Missing all you monkeys loads - ah yeah, see ya later mate!

The merry pickers & Trevor
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