While we’re talking about Fly in Fly Out mining jobs….
Years ago I went out with a Fly in Fly out mining exec, no surprise there after all I grew up in Western Australia. In fact I’d suggest that any West Australian female, who didn’t marry her childhood sweetheart, eventually went out with either someone working on the mines, a member of the SAS, or both.
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© The Ponder Room
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Anyway the Miner romance lasted for a surprisingly long time, especially given the six weeks on, one week off work arrangement. If that wasn’t hard enough, it was during the pre-mobilephone/internet era, which meant communication could only be made by mail, and the mail service only operated once a week. While this sounds harsh the reality was it made for some very creative, romantic letters and even more romantic reunions.
As an example Valentines Day would often see a ‘pamper pack’ winging its way to a far off sandy destination. The contents – a home made carrot cake, a smuggled minibar bottle of Galliano (it was pre-alcohol testing days), and if I was feeling particularly generous a ‘boys magazine’, of a non-car variety, you can make up your own mind whether this last addition was a naughty or nice thing to do, to a fella trapped in a male-only minesite for six weeks.
Years followed with Mr Miner declaring the virtues of my home made carrot cake to anyone who would listen, even to his mother, a member of the CWA, who took it on the chin.
Then the day came……
There I was in the kitchen combining the ingredients for said carrot cake….an egg, some olive oil, water and …… the upturned contents of a packet cake mixture.
Jumping around the corner in a surprise visit, Mr Miner was mortified with the sight before him, no doubt reliving all the years I’d been deceiving him with my wily packet cake ways……oh the shame.
Little wonder I guess that the relationship fizzled out a short time later, after a far greater deception was committed on his part.
Remembering this does make me ponder…
- What constitutes homemade? After all I still had to use ‘hand power’ to mix and ice said atrocity.
- Would it have been such an affront to humankind for a city boy, sans CWA links?
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Or was it a forerunner to our eventual irreconcilable differences?
