Tonight we are in one of our regular campsites, a van park in Yackandandah.

Location: ///cumbersome.fizzle.rally

We love this secluded little park at the Yack. I remember during our last visit (a few years back) we were interrupted by the owner just as we settled in to happy hour. At the time I wrote:

“I will call him the leaf-blower Dude. But actually I think he was the owner, or the manager. And right on beer-o’clock for some bizarre reason, it was time to walk around the holiday park with his supercharged leaf blower. I think he thought he was tidying the pathways from the first falling leaves of Autumn.

But what he was actually doing was an immensely annoying din, sucking the yin out of my yang, and blowing up huge clouds of dust and suspended particulate matter that hung in the air turning the entire park into a giant snow-globe of topsoil.

Despite this. The leaf-blower dude strolled past each of us in turn, leaf blowing his heart out in slow sweeping arcs. We all just looked across at each other and sneezed and coughed up a little phlegm and then rolled our eyes at each other some more.”

Well, guess what? Today just as I cracked a cold beer, tinked evening cheers with Kelly, popped the lid off some fresh olives and began chatting with our new neighbours….he is back.

And this time he has an accomplice.

Great clouds of dust and Autumn leaves engulfed us all as we struggled to carry a conversation above the horsepower.

So I’m thinking this must be routine. I’m thinking of all the hundreds of Autumn campers, since we were last here, who must have had their communal happy hour interrupted until atmospheric particulate levels were again compatible with life.

Blower man and Mower Man eventually drove us all back into our respective vans. Until every last scrap of deciduous leafage in the park had been chopped up, shredded up and blown up into the air.

Tomorrow’s happy hour will be at midday.