The Shift

Saturday morning 6am and my alarm goes off. I feel like I've been asleep for ten minutes. I turn it off and spend the next ten minutes debating the merits of getting up right now versus a few more minutes shut-eye. Naturally I lose the argument and drag my sorry-self into the shower.

I pull on my Scout uniform and work boots and yell to the girls to get up as I head to the shed to find gardening gloves and snippers. We're in the car and at the park at 7am. The truck is already there along with a few brave-hearts from the committee. We drag 95 trees from the truck, set up tables and gazebos, string banners and after that, arrange trees by approximate size. I send the girls off for coffees and croissants.

Customers begin to arrive and it's really quite busy for the first day.

A second truck arrives with another 55 trees and we drag those off as well.

I remind the committee president that I'd swapped shifts with another family because E has her netball grand final.

"Yes," she exclaimed like I just reminded her of something she'd forgotten. "I did wonder why you did that because I hadn't even rostered you on."
"But look - there's the kids' surname," I say, pointing to the roster.
"Didn't you know there's another family in Scouts with the same name?"

Clearly, I did not!


Anyway, it was a busy three and a half hours that went quickly, the coffee and croissants were good (a couple of extra hours sleep and my regular pilates class would also have been 'good') but I simply thought of it as one of the final contributions to the group. Must rush....I have Cubs in 45 minutes.....