Am I Normal?

Throughout my solo travels around Australia a question that keeps recurring in my mind is 'am I normal?' For instance I had to ask myself that when I was swimming in a deserted Cronulla sea pool at 10.30 at night. The question was certainly pertinent when my tennis watching time ticked over 30 hours on only the third day of the Australian Open. And I couldn't escape such thoughts one evening at the Cronulla Beach YHA, when after a tough day of labouring I found myself still hungry after wolfing down an enormous plate of BBQ sauce drenched beef and rice - my move to subsequently cook two eggs and eat them with toast left one of many stunned guests to comment "it's making me feel sick". Of course, I don't really care whether I'm 'normal' or not, and I'm not even sure if I know what 'normal' is. But I do worry about myself sometimes.

Another such occasion presented itself today, when I was genuinely excited to do a job that would leave most inventing niggling injuries to avoid. I'm currently on a helpx placement at a house that is a 15 minute train ride away from Perth CBD. The family I'm residing with are extremely friendly and also British (they moved out here in 2006), making my stay very homely. They wisely decided to take advantage of my presence and order their firewood stock this week. Today, my job was to shift it from the driveway where it was dumped and stack it at the back of the garage. It was a big pile of logs, but I was relishing the task. It was a job that would play to my strengths and constitute a great workout. Furthermore, I saw it as a challenge and that was exciting. Fuelling my competitive attitude towards this chore was my host, who had previously remarked "I don't know whether it can be done by one person in a day, it will be tough, hard on the back". 'Bring it on' I thought, lets see if it can be done by one person in an hour.

Starting at exactly 1pm, I rushed towards the pile and frantically tossed logs into the wheelbarrow, then hastily reversed the length of the garage to the stack (which currently contained a small amount of wood), and hurled the logs down, hoping that my hosts shared my view that tidiness of stack is of no importance whatsoever. That was one 'barrow load done. How many more? Looking at the mountain of logs the answer was a lot. An awful lot. An hour was perhaps being absurdly ambitious. These thoughts were contemplated while on the move, there was no time to spare. After 15 minutes I was sweating profusely (the pile of logs was directly under the scorching Perth sub) and the stack was rising nicely. However, I seemed to have barely made a dent in the pile, which still cut an intimidating presence. I decided there would be no further time checks and turned from man to machine, shifting the wood rapidly without regard for my progress or wellbeing. Before I knew it, the pile had been reduced to a single layer of logs. But what was the time? The home stretch was made tricky by my ungainly stack, which was now two rows deep and tilting ominously in my direction, requiring care to ensure the last few logs didn't slide off immediately after they were stacked. Regardless, I hurried towards the finish line. Once the last wheelbarrow was successfully unloaded I ripped off my gloves and flicked on my phone. 2pm! Not one minute before, not one minute after. Remarkable! I had smashed  the job in exactly one hour! Putting my phone down, I spun towards the newly assembled stack and gave it the Lleyton Hewitt style fingers-to-forehead celebration. Walking over to the rake, I then went for a double fist pump. The sweeping took about 15 minutes, then I cooked off in the pool, took a quick shower, and crushed some leftover chicken pasta bake - barely two hours after finishing a sizeable lunch. Am I normal?

Wednesday 5th March 2014, 1-2pm - my finest hour?