The Bed and Breakfast man: Sunshine on my shoulder makes me crappy.

When you live in a country all your life you get to know the dangers it presents. Australians are famous for keeping a weather eye on everything from the tiniest spider to the biggest croc. But we still merrily wonder around soaking up the sun as if we were wrapped in leather.

Having lived in an apartment for the last three years, after giving up nearly half an acre in the blue mountains, I have been relishing the chance to sink my hands back in the soil in my new garden. It needs a LOT of work, but that's what I love to do. If I wasn't hog tied to the family business I'd buy a gardening franchise and spend my days outdoors listening to the sweet sound of a two stroke engine.

Sunday was the first day that I had nothing left to do in the house. I had bought myself a new mower, resurrected my whipper snipper, and sharpened all the shears. I pulled on some shorts, my work boots with those natty little cloth and elastic gaiters to keep the grass out, a singlet and an Akubra. I gave some vague thought to hunting for the sunblock, but it ended up slipping my mind. For nigh on eight hours I shaped hedges, edged lawns, pruned bushes, cut dead wood and mowed in blazing 35 odd degree heat. Then I spent an hour loading the ute and tying down all the rubbish and empty boxes from the move.

When Mrs A. got home from work I had started to glow in the shade. By nightfall anything I sat on spontaneously combusted. A mote of dust landing on my back sent shivers of pain through me. I have gone through nearly two bottles of aloe vera and had next to no sleep. I even had yesterday off work.

I'm thirteen types of complete eejit.

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