Conversations on a Wet Summer’s Day
January 13th 2007


Uncle Harry and his neighbour, Clayton Piles, were sitting in the implement shed watching the rain fall steadily from a slate-grey sky. A carton of beer lay open between them.
“Happy New Year, Harry,” offered Clayton, raising his can.
“Yep, Happy blimmin’ New Year,” replied Harry gloomily.
A fresh squall of rain sent small rivulets of water splashing through rust holes in the spouting of the old shed.

“They say it’s global warming that’s causing all this rain,” remarked Clayton.
“Global warming,” spat Harry, “I’ve never been so cold in January. Or so wet. See that paddock of grass seed over past the pines? I cut that a week and a half ago. I haven’t got near it since.”
“And I’m picking you haven’t had a lot of use out of that new irrigator.”

Harry sighed. “It’s funny, isn’t it. For years everybody’s been urging me to invest in irrigation. The moment I do, what happens? It rains for three months. I’ve got a hundred thousand dollars of rotor rainer rusting in the yard.”
“I see Gladys has found a use for it at least,” Clayton waved his beer can to where the irrigator was parked in the yard. It was hung with clothing, bed sheets and towels.
“Yep,” agreed Harry. “On the couple of fine days we’ve had she’s used it as a clothes line. She says it’s the biggest Hills Hoist in Canterbury. I was supposed to get that lot inside before the rain started. Gladys won’t be happy.”
“Is she not around?”
“She’s taken young Sam into town to get his ukulele fixed.”

Sam was Harry’s grand-nephew, a regular holiday visitor to Hardtop Farm and a bit of a handful.

“A ukulele,” Clayton laughed, “I didn’t know Sam was a musician.”
“He’s not a musician, he’s just highly strung,” retorted Harry. “The ukulele was a Christmas present. Actually, it could have been worse; his first choice was a set of bagpipes. Imagine the little tike blowing those around the house for three weeks.”
“And the ukulele’s broken, you say.”
Harry reached for another beer, looking sheepish. “Actually, that was my fault. I was doing a Jimi Hendrix impersonation and snapped a couple of strings.”

The two men sat in silence for a while, watching the rain. A couple of gulls swooped into the yard and Harry’s old dog, Rufus, growled at them from his kennel.

“Did you get any good Christmas presents yourself?” Harry asked.
“The usual stuff; socks, underwear, that sort of thing,” replied Clayton.
“Do you notice the labels on clothing are getting more outrageous, Clayton? Gladys gave me a pair of flash y-fronts with more tags on than a prize bull. To read them you’d think you were buying a new car, not just a pair of undies. The funniest one was the label that said, ‘warning: may contain traces of nuts.’ It put me right off wearing them, I can tell you.”

“I know what you mean, Harry. Joan gave me a pair of socks that claim they can turn me into a top athlete. There’s so much design and engineering built into them they’re even labelled ‘left’ and ‘right’. Apparently it’s crucial to get them onto the correct foot.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No way. According to the label, if I wear these socks correctly they’ll help me reach my personal goals. Actually, I’m wearing them now. I’ll show you.”

Clayton kicked off his gumboots. On his feet was a pair of new grey socks with the letters L and R stamped prominently on the ankle.

Harry peered at the socks. “Hang on, Clayton. You’ve got them on the wrong feet.”
Clayton looked at his feet and pondered for a moment. “Crikey, Harry, you’re right. No wonder I’ve been feeling unbalanced all day.”
“I noticed you were walking a bit strangely. I thought you must have been wearing some of those same undies as me.”
“It won’t have done my personal goals any good, having those socks on the wrong way around.”

Clayton bent over to change his socks.

“Speaking of goals,” said Harry, “did you make any New Year’s resolutions?”
“Oh, just the usual: drink a bit more, smoke a bit less, improve my work-life balance, you know the sort of thing. What about you?”
“Nuh, I gave it a miss this year. Gladys was pestering me to get a hobby. She even offered to buy me a ukulele so I could take up music like Sam. I told her I already have a hobby.”
“What’s that?”
“Farming. I mean, it’s got be a hobby, hasn’t it? We don’t do it to earn a living.”
“Not this year, anyway.”

A skiff of rain blew into the shed and the two men moved their chairs back. Harry pulled the carton of beer closer and helped himself to another can.

“Actually, I have got a New Year’s resolution of sorts,” he remarked. “I reckon if I can survive young Sam’s visit I’ll have achieved something.”
“Hard work, is he?”
“He’s just a bit too keen, Clayton. Last week he offered to do some roguing. I said that was fine. Well, the little blighter decided it was more efficient to get the rogues with the ride-on lawnmower. By the time he’d finished my wheat paddock looked like a giant had scribbled all over it. Every weirdo in the district was out here looking at it and talking about crop circles. ‘Crop circles, be buggered’ I told them. ‘It’s more like crop doodles.’”
“And then there was the business with the water race, wasn’t there?”
“Don’t remind me,” groaned Harry. “I was joking when I said if the rain kept up we could start growing rice. The next morning I woke up to find he’d dammed the water race, flooded twenty acres of barley and was running around with a sack of rice he’d grabbed from the pantry.”

At that moment Harry’s old Ford Fairlane splashed into the yard.

“Speak of the devil,” grumbled Harry.

Sam shot out of the car. “Uncle Harry! Mr Piles!” he shouted, “guess what!”
“I can’t imagine,” said Clayton.
“They said my ukulele was stuffed. So Aunty Gladys got me this.”

With a flourish Sam pulled a large object from the car.

“Bagpipes,” groaned Harry.

“Yeah, bagpipes. I can’t wait to start playing them.”