Swamp Creature vs River Monster

Sometimes I really wish this was not a 'G' rated blog. Things happen from time to time and all you really want to do is spit and swear and cuss and break shit!

Owning your own business has its ups and downs; that is no secret. Let us consider one or two:

• You don't answer to anyone....................errrrr................except your Clients and the Tax office
• You have greater flexibility to.....ummm.......manipulate your home life to facilitate more work
• You are in control............right up until that point when the global economic market reminds you that you actually have no control at all, over anything whatsoever.

But I can deal with whatever is coming my way. I make my own bed and I am happy to lie in it, whether it is fully of petals or pricks. What I can't deal with is making decisions that have a deleterious effect on my staff. These are the people who have spilled the same blood in the same mud as me since this business journey began 7 years ago. It makes my head hurt and my heart pound when I have to give them the worst news.

Yesterday was one of those days and the office was a place where I just simply did not want to be, so I skipped out and went to my happy place; a couple of acres of nothing, situated nowhere and populated by nobody.

I quietly wandered among the saplings that I had recently planted. I was grinning like a village idiot because, weeks on, we still had a 100% survival rate. I don't consider myself a green thumb; I normally couldn't grow Patterson's Curse. The black cloud was lifting as I chatted to my little giants (River Gums). .

To my surprise some old friends popped by, which is a little peculiar as I don't live at the block? Guess they were just playing the odds that I might be there: either that or they were just scoping the joint out for anything they might come back and steal under the cover of darkness. As previously mention, that global economic crisis is a bastard and you 'gotta do what you gotta do' to get by. These guys are exploration drillers so they are probably worse off than us in the environmental game.

So a patchy sun/cloud day and a few old friends to chew the fat with. My day could not really get better or could it? Click to find out how it ended.