20 Bureaucracy

Despite being in the middle of nowhere with no town facilities like sealed roads, piped water, sewerage and rubbish collection, the bureaucracy caught up with us. The double garage we were living in most comfortably wasn’t classed as a dwelling, only as a shed. If we set in play the building of an actual house by sending the council the plans and paying the appropriate dues, we could continue to live in the shed till the house was built. It was also noted that the access to the property was inadequate, not being trafficable in all weathers, and not being wide enough for the passage of two vehicles simultaneously. This should be attended to as a priority.

We hadn’t factored in these costs and time consuming activities. By now she had almost finished her Law Degree with exams looming and I had additional responsibilities at work, but no more pay as happens. Luckily for us these council demands were followed by personnel changes in council and so the pressure was off for a while on the shed. Unfortunately, Gordon next door got really sick with cancer and there was an increasing likelihood that he would need to use the ambulance to Bombala Hospital occasionally. This may not seem relevant, but when the river was in flood, our neighbours’ only way to get to Bombala was through our place as that avoided crossing the river. But our place had a back creek which also rose to more than a metre deep.

I talked to Garry. He came up with a plan. Build a bridge over your creek he said. I had images of using a shipping container placed on the high banks to span the creek. It would work and containers were only $100 plus delivery. Garry liked to do things very cheaply and always read the adverts in the Canberra Times for bargains. I was sure he memorised many of them for revisiting on a rainy day. A metal H-shape beam from a decommissioned overhead crane was advertised a couple of weeks ago, he said, and it was only $20 though it must have cost $100s. I didn’t get his drift. If it’s long enough to span the creek when cut in half, I could weld in some spacers between the halves and you have a roadway. He got on the phone. The beam was big enough. The selling firm in Fyshwick would do the cutting for nothing and an adjacent company had a truck with a hoist big enough to load the metal onto our truck. The hoist driver would do it for a case of VB.

Garry said we can do it tomorrow. I need a day off work. Of course he had to get permission, so I gave it to him.