Sometimes something happens and you find, when thinking of it again, you find yourself laughing. This is something that happened last Friday.
First I need to explain. For many years we have had a front driveway gate consisting of a large gate and a smaller one. Phil had installed the larger one many, many years ago swinging it on a steel post. Previous even to that we had a ranch style fence built at the front of the property so the smaller of the two gates was swung on the large fence post.
All this worked wonderfully well until white ants (termites) decided to devour the 4 x 4 main post. We had the termites sprayed and any that were left deep inside the post were probably devoured by black ants over time. Haven't seen a black ant there for a couple of years so obviously no white ants either. As you can imagine the post began to lean somewhat and over the years got worse and worse and the little gate wouldn't meet up with the larger gate and as everything by now was on a lean it even became difficult to move the small gate.
Why am I telling you this? I needed to explain as it is all connected with what happened on Friday. Our lovely English lass, Jenny, that comes into clean each fortnight (our local council provides these workers and they are subsidised by our state government so cost very little to we elderly folk) has an 18 year old son who is a real handy man. She asked should she bring him round to check out what needed doing and I thought that a good idea. I wanted the big post and the entire section of fence removed, a steel pole to be installed and the small gate swung on that post.
He said he could do that and came on Friday morning to remove the wooden fence and said he would return on Saturday morning to install the new post, give the instant concrete time to dry and return at 3pm swing the gate. That was beautifully done and a tradesmen couldn't have done a better job and probably would have charged a small fortune. He didn't want to take any money but I decided that 4 hours of his time plus travelling was worth a lot and when he receives the payment in his bank account I think he will be pleasantly surprised.
Over the years I have planted trees and shrubs on both sides of the ranch fence so we don't really need to replace the large section that was removed as even a small dog would have difficulty in getting through. Yay!!! Money saved!!!!
So why am I still laughing you ask......after Corey had left on Friday afternoon I suggested to Phil that he should bring the letterbox in which had been left outside with the demolished old fence. Phil realised that the small gate was probably out there too and should bring it in for safety's sake. This is probably only about 30 minutes after Corey had left. Phil came in and said the small gate had disappeared. I can still see his face as he told me this and I can imagine what mine was like when I heard what he said. I know these days people go around checking out items at times of council verge collections but for a gate to disappear so quickly....surely not, and definitely no verge collections taking place right now. Phil even went and checked again but no gate either inside or outside.
I suggested he ring Jenny and ask her where Corey had put the gate in case Phil had missed it. She was out so he left a message and she rang back soon after. I asked her about the gate and her answer was "right now your gate is in my garage. Corey brought it home with him to make sure the hinges etc fitted OK." He had forgotten to mention he'd taken the gate and here were Phil and I thinking dreadful thoughts about rotten thieves etc. It may not seem funny to others but to me it really hit the spot and, after all, it's always good to have something to make one laugh, no matter what.
