Today’s SPOTD award goes to Ted Tremayne - the original owner-builder of our house in the 1950s. Based on the property title we received when we bought the house, Ted’s occupation was as an “engineer”. There are many sorts of engineers though, including civil, chemical, railway, and completely freakin’ insane [*]. Ted was the latter.

There have been more than a few times when we’ve gone to do something with the house in the last couple of years but been brought up rather suddenly by something Ted’s done. Installing the insulation batts in the ceiling, for example, would have been much easier if Ted had not built an attic up there first. Why he chose to not insulate the roof space in its entirety (about 1/10th of the roof space was insulated), we’re not sure. The main outcome of that task was that we learned to replace excessive profanity with the phrase “Good Old Ted!”. Smack your head into a jutting out board? Sliced your hand open on one of the eighteen odd-sized nails Ted used to build a fake wall? Don’t drop the F-bomb. Just grimace, count to 5 and say “Good Old Ted!”.

When we were pricing the kitchen renovation, we thought we could save some money on the rip-out and removal of the existing kitchen. However, when the price quoted was only $300 for what we could see was possibly a tricky task, we decided to let other people do the work for us. After watching the kitchen-removers rip into the kitchen for the first ten minutes, I was beginning to think we could have saved the money and done the work ourselves. But then it was time to say, like so many other occasions, “Good Old Ted!”.

Presumably saving himself a few dollars, or else as an expression of his apparent hatred for all things pre-fabricated, Ted had built his own firewall in the kitchen. Obviously a good idea if you want to stop the heat of an oven moving into the next room. But not a good idea if you build it out of solid concrete almost two inches thick… Yes, Ted managed to put together a rather spectacular structure of cabinetry and concrete that possibly may have - if we’d left it untouched - outlasted the pyramids of Egypt. The two blokes struggled with sledgehammers, crowbars and power saws to eventually destroy the wall, taking almost double the estimated 2-hours. If Di and I had tackled the job using the tools we own, we’d still be at it now.

There are also hints that we might be discovering one or two other surprises in the near future so it’s quite possible Ted will be accepting a couple of SPOTD awards.

[*] = Just before all my engineer friends reading this feel too smug, I’ll just point out that the categories are not mutually exclusive…*grin*

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After receiving a letter from the council late last year which informed me I had to cut back a tree overhanging the footpath, I’ve been a little bit annoyed with them. I don’t deny that the tree was overhanging but it was more that I was the only one to get a letter when there are seven other trees as low or lower than mine was. Including the council-planted and maintained tree on the nature strip which my tree was growing next to…

Since I’d been forced into prompt action under threat of a fine, I decided that I’d grown sick of walking around two particularly bad overhanging trees from a park. One is a live tree which completely blocks two-thirds of the footpath and the other was six feet behind it - dead as a doornail and essentially just a collection of sharp pointy sticks at eye-level. After personally squeezing past the live tree and almost removing an eye on the second tree as I straightened up, as well as watching other people do the same, I thought I’d report it to the council so they could trim them both back.

After ringing the office once and seeing no resultant action, I called back to find my complaint had been lost and therefore it needed to be re-listed. I did so and a couple of days later the council obviously turned up to prune the two trees. Except they missed one. Somehow they decided to completely remove the dead tree which was a good thing, but ignored the densely growing tree six feet away. This, of course, means I need to ring them again to ask them to go back and do the other half of the work they were requested to do in the first place. And they wonder why people make fun of the council-provided services…

PS: Diana actually thought the SPOTD award for today was going to go to the guy who boarded the tram with a small dog and spent a fair bit of time nuzzling with it in either (1) a display of affection or (2) a desperate attempt to contract some sort of zoonosis. However, we held out until we got home before awarding the prize and the council employees snuck in at the last chance.

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Coming home on the tram, we were three-quarters of the way home when we both suddenly smelled cigarette smoke. Turning around to confirm this, we saw the person right behind us had lit up a cigarette. We both gave him the evil eye and turned back around discussing loudly how some people were morons for thinking they could illegally smoke on public transport. It occurred to me that it wouldn’t be enough to make such comments so I turned back around and demanded the guy put out his cigarette.

After another drag, he put the cigarette out, whining how it was needed “you know, ‘cos of the heat, mate”. He was accurate about the weather - it was well over 35C at the time but how he equated relief from hot air with the sucking of heated air into his lungs, we’re not quite sure. Two stops later, he stood to get off the tram and once more lit his cigarette inside the tram as he waited for the doors to open. It took quite a bit of restraint to not simply stand, put one foot against the small of his back and rocket him unexpectedly outside onto the street as soon as they opened…

After he’d alighted (pun intended), I turned around to look at all the junk he’d left behind on the tram. Suddenly I realised that amongst all the litter he’d deposited on the floor and seat opposite him, he’d also left a very recently purchased packet of smoking tobacco to make his own cigarettes. Evidently he’d just bought it (because the tobacco was packed neatly except for the removal of one cigarette’s worth) and obviously was so keen to smoke it, he’d not been able to wait until he got off the tram. However, as a consequence he’d ended up leaving the tobacco pouch behind so it was a very expensive single cigarette.

It’s nice when karma comes into play with SPOTDs sometimes.

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