Bellbird Park, 10 October
Hi Marlis,
Thank you for calling me on my birthday yesterday, it
was so nice to hear from you! We were a bit busy on the fireground, but I just
took a break and called you back because some things are more important than
others and that fire wasn’t moving too fast anyway 😊.
I was a bit sad that I couldn’t make it to your
birthday this year but very happy to hear you had one of the best birthdays
ever and with 92 birthdays done, that’s really saying something, haha.
It’s been a busy few months with lots of firefighting
and a few adventures to share, so here we go!
New job but also an old job
After not working for nearly six months, two weeks ago
I started at Lactalis, the company that I worked for as a contractor in 2025.
This time I am back as an employee which means they have to pay a bit less, but
I still make very good money. More importantly, I get to see the end result of
what I did from November 2024 to July 2025, which is very rare in my line of
work. Normally we do part of a change, but not all of it and are always left to
wonder how it all ended. Well, not this time, I now get to see if everything I
recommended back then actually works today. So far, I think I got most of it
right.
It’s funny how I got this job. After I left, they
didn’t have a person in the role for nearly six months which didn’t work well
at all. Then they asked me if I knew someone and of course I did, a lady called
Mel. Mel did a lot of hard work over the next eight months and then decided to
go back into the Superannuation business, so Lactalis needed a new person in
that role again. Mel contacted me to see if I was available, which I was and a
week later I was back in the office working with a team that I really enjoyed
being a part of. I have a six month contract, but Sarah will leave at the end
of December and even if that means I get to leave too, it will have been worth
it to close this 3-year project out together.
There’s a lot happening on all sides, and lots of
things that I can help with, but for now I will just focus on our little team
and making sure everyone gets the backpay they are owed, which is what this
whole project is about.
It’s strange to be back in an office that I know,
working with people who I knew before, but they’ve all moved on over the past
14 months, so I have some catching up to do! It’s also funny that I now run
into my old colleagues from McNab, which is just down the road and on the same
route to the supermarket and coffee places. I’ve managed to avoid my old team
members who wasted my time, but it’s bound to happen that I run into them at
some point. I am not sure how I will react, probably a bit cool and reserved as
we didn’t part on the best of terms, but so far, the people I’ve run into were
the good ones 😊.
Yumi’s activities
Yumi has taken on another role in the organisation,
but only for 3 months this time. The deputy-CEO has left and they had a gap
that needed to filled fast, but no one else to do it. Team player that she is, she agreed to look after
parts of the role while the CEO finds a suitable candidate and Yumi will gladly
go back to her own role. At least she will get ‘time for time’ as in, all the
overtime she puts in (about a day a week extra) will be added to her leave, so
she can take a nice long break in the new year. I strongly suspect that will
never happen, but at least it’s better than the 5% pay increase that was
offered. She’s doing great in the role, of course, but has to deal with a lot
of people problems, which she really doesn’t like, so fortunately there’s
little chance she will actually keep doing it in the new year.
She also had the big Common People Dance Project
performance a few weeks ago and it was even more over the top than the previous
years. 7 teams from all across Queensland, easily 250 people all having a
friendly dance battle to see who gets the ugliest trophy you have ever seen.
It’s hilarious to watch and looks like great fun to do.
This was her fourth year and she really enjoys the
whole experience from start to finish, including helping out with creating
props for the stage (they looked great) and planning where everyone goes on the
stage during the dance routines. The dancers have become very good friends and
now she has at least one or two birthday parties or other festive things to go
to every month, which is great to distract her from work too 😊. The other dance group (Choo La La) is throwing a
performance in two weeks, it’s the weir done where women run around in their
undies but Yumi enjoys it, so I’ll clap along and cheer, because that’s what
you do to stay happily married, haha.
The greyhound rescue business is as busy as ever. We had a few house guests over the past two months and right now we have Portia who is a real handful, but she’s only staying one night. Before her we had Jenny, another girl for about three weeks and she was okay, but Dash was so over it that we made sure she didn’t stay too long. It doesn’t help that Dash somehow managed to pull out one of his toe nails while running in the yard yesterday, we have no idea how he managed that! He’s going to the vet in 30 minutes and will probably be just fine, but there was a lot of blood before Yumi managed to bandage his foot. Poor guy!
Fire Service Volunteering
It’s been very busy the past two months when it comes
to fire-fighting and things going on at the fire station. I’ve learned a lot of
technical skills and my off-road driving with the fire truck has certainly
improved too. You should see some of the trails we go onto and somehow I’ve
still managed to not get the truck dug in or damaged. There were a few times
where I wondered if I would be able to get past or up a certain hill or
obstacle, but our trusty 20-year old trucks always seemed up to the challenge.
It all started with a fire in Fordsdale, where we
spent a few days mostly standing around and waiting for the fire to come to us.
It doesn’t make sense for a lot of people and vehicles to work really hard to
get 300 meters closer while the fire is coming your way anyway. It can be
frustrating though. You drop everything, drive 100km to get somewhere that
people need help and by the time you get there, the conditions have changed and
the fire goes away until the next day and you do it all again. It’s called slow
containment, where we throw a lot of resources at the fire and hope it shows up
at the right time. Fortunately, it did at some stage and we got her under
control and put out.
The media always make a big production of there being
no structures lost, but most of the structures I’ve seen would not be a
terrible loss. Of course it would be to the people living in them, even if their
houses are falling down around them.
At the same time there was a very big and fast-moving
fire in the same area, called the Plainlands fire and that was right next to
the road, heading towards town and a gas station, so that drew a lot of
resources and attention, but once it burnt through all the grass and shrubs it
didn’t have anywhere else to go and put itself out, but not before creating a
massive smoke column that could be seen from 50km away.
Then there were two big fires, literally just down the
road of our station. We responded with a big ‘weight of attack’ (lots of
trucks) and because there was a lot of smoke, it was very visible and
relatively close to houses and shops. The smoke made it all the way to Brisbane
city 30km away and no one was enjoying that! Try to imagine that everything in
our area is very dry and hasn’t seen rain for months so you’ll understand we’re
essentially standing in a very large tinder box that only need sone spark to go.
It’s really silly things like people welding a fence, or grinding a piece of
equipment and moving their fields. Or arsonists, that too, but we never see
them and definitely not cigarette butts, which is a myth that will not die.
Cigarette butts self-extinguish within a second by design, but people always
think fires start with that. Having tried to set fire to fields myself for a
controlled burn, I can guarantee it’s not as easy as it looks 😊.
On this fire there were a lot of challenges with radio
communication not getting through, members of the public misbehaving in their
cars trying to go through roadblocks when the smoke was going over the road and
the fire being fuelled by strong winds, but after 3 days and a lot of standing
around we got her down and out for real, but then we had to keep coming back
for 5 more days to put in firebreaks around the area and put out flare ups and
tree fires, because trees hold a lot of heat and can burn for up to tree weeks!
Oh, and I was on the news with my colleague for 2 seconds, just standing around
and talking to property owners, they were very concerned about their property,
wetting it down, while the fire was moving away from them and still 500 meters
away, but nothing we said would put their minds at ease. We ended up putting in
a big backburn to take the fuel away from the fire and then they could finally
relax.
We have a funny tradition at the station that if you
get on the news you have to bring Tim Tams. By the end of this fire we had a
lot of Tim Tams because our brigade and firefighters were ‘in the shot’ a lot!
As soon as that one was done, the next day we had a fast-moving
fire on the other side of the station and that also threatened to jump across
the highway. This would be very bad because of damage to the road and the smoke
takes all visibility away from drivers, who of course just keep driving right
through it, because some people are idiots. You can imagine the community got
really spooked with another fire so quickly after the first and so close
to houses and shops, but this one we got under control right before it hit the
highway and mostly within 24 hours.
The following week (this is 4 weeks ago) we went to
Left Hand Branch, a town of 60 souls in the West, near Toowoomba for a few days
to help control a fire there. Their station is essentially a shed with one
truck and a fridge and it made me appreciate how luxurious our facilities are
by comparison and how easy it is for us to train every week.
Two weeks later we had two more big fires, all in the
same Western area still, this time at Murphys Creek, and 15-Mile and 17-Mile
road (both are roads and towns, not very creative, haha). These were
very challenging because of the terrain of very steep hills and limited access
and exit roads and very warm weather, plus more than 25 vehicles and crews to
coordinate, which made me very happy to not be in charge of anything but
myself. These were long days of 12-14 hours. We only spent about 2-3 hours on
the hose, most of the time we were driving around, mapping the fire, putting in
firebreaks or backburning so we take the fuel away from the fire, which comes
with its own risks of the fire escaping but fortunately it played nice.
After 3 weeks that fire was under control, with a
little outbreak last Friday where we went out with a few trucks from different
brigades to put out spot fires, which is dirty and hard work, bush bashing and
hauling hoses, even burning through a few hoses, but we got there in the end.
It’s not great when you realise this is only spring and there is still a lot of
material left that can burn.
One thing that really warmed my heart when I was going
at it for 9 days straight in September is the amount of community appreciation
in person from people stopping by, people waving and honking their horns and on
social media offering us free meals and other things, which we can’t accept,
but the sentiment is lovely. I feel I’ve really grown as a firefighter in the
past three months, with much more to learn in the months to come!
In between the fires we also had our tow-yearly brigade
elections where the management team and officer roles get voted in. It was
quite the shake up this time, but the outcome was very much what I wanted. We
have a new female First Officer who is the boss of the brigade and she has a
solid team of 7 officers to help her. Then there's the management team, made up of
me, as Chair, the Secretary and Treasurer, but we’re mostly administrative and
I am an advisor to the First Officer when it comes to managing volunteers,
while she looks after the operations of the station.
Sometimes people forget it’s volunteering and get so invested everything becomes a personal attack, which just puts everyone in a bad mood, so let’s not do that! 😊
We also did a massive station cleanup, throwing out a lot of things that had built up over years and taking care of problems that never got solved completely. You know how I love cleaning up and sorting, so with two colleagues and just 4 hours we cleared out and reorganised everything without throwing away too much stuff. As always, it was more a matter of restacking and repacking than anything else and it looked so much better. We’ll do a working bee event next week to get rid of the last things and sort out some more issues, so we don’t have to worry about it during the rest of fire season.
Australasian Change Days Conference (ACDC)
From 20-22 August I helped run the ACDC for the 7th
time and perhaps the last time for a while. It was a lot of work with just the three of us as one of the team
had to step away when her mum got very sick and died a few months later. But we
gave it a good go and managed to do all the promotion, session planning and
scheduling well enough. Ticket sales were a big concern as we always sell about
60 or so tickets and this year we did too, but the final15 were sold in the
last 3 days and the last ticket was bought 15 minutes before we started. Ooof, that
was a bit too close for (my) comfort.
The event was as good as ever, I am always so
impressed with the quality of facilitators we manage to group together and the
people who show up really want to be there. I had to step away on the morning
of the third day to do the brigade elections, but made it back just in time for
the wrap up and all participants had really enjoyed it. We have an idea to
continue on in a different monthly format, because we all love bringing people
together, but spend 200-300 hours a year for just a bit of money that we then
also donate to charity seems like a lot at the moment. Maybe we’ll be back in
2028, maybe not. Everyone wants it to happen, but very few can or care to put
the time in to make it a reality, so we’ll give it a rest and see what happens
next.
Short mentions
· Netherlands trip: We’re planning to visit friends and
family in the Netherlands early April 2027, as it’s been a few years again and
our parents aren’t getting any younger, although they are still doing well
enough. It will be good to spend some time with both our families and friends.
We had a plan to also go to Paris for some nostalgia (Yumi’s parents lived
there for 12 years) but it got too complicated, so we’ll just do the 10-day
trip around the Netherlands instead.
· Dash’s paw piercing: aside from losing a nail, last
week Yumi noticed Dash had a small stick sticking through the webbing of his
left front paw. It didn’t seem to bother him too much, but we still went to the
vet to get it removed and now he has a small hole that you can see through.
It’s healed completely by now, which is good otherwise he’d have two painful
feet to deal with.
· Expensive car mistake: We were taking Dash for a walk
with the VW Polo car, while the Electric Vehicle was finally getting its sides
fixed from the June accident and I misjudged how low the car was when parking
at the dog park. I heard a scrape on the bottom and carefully backed out but
completely ripped off the underside of the bumper. Turns out that costs $1,100
to replace! Ouch!! Such a small mistake, if only I had parked on the other side
we would have been fine….
· Birthday: I didn’t do much for my birthday, which is
also the celebration of our 29 years together. Yumi had too much on, foster dog
Portia was staying overnight and we just didn’t really feel like it, so I ended
up going to the fires and Yumi ate a pizza. I did get a lot of birthday wishes
and ended up having a chat online with my friend Just (who I went diving on the
Maldives with) so I call it a good day. 48 Marlis, I am getting old(er)
· The diet: My dieting is going really well. The weight
loss is slow but stead (88kg now, aiming for 82 next year), but the best part
is that I am not thinking about food at all. It’s hard to describe how
wonderful and relaxing that is. I have no idea why it’s working this time
around after so many failed attempts but I am not going to complain about it
and will keep doing what I am doing. I feel better and more relaxed an also
noticed I get less frustrated and angry at stupid things than I used to, so
everyone is winning!
Well, I guess that’s most of it from my end, I’ll
write again early December with new adventures and if there’s anything at all,
you know you can always call me!
Be well and enjoy Spring,
Gilbert
