March [week 2]
Laura & Mark 8th March (working day no. 11)
This morning we were joined by a newcomer to our crew, as Sam was going to work in the shed for a while until his leg recovered (he spent the last day and a half in bed, feeling ill after some shot they’d given him). The new man was George, an Argentinean who had only been learning English for 2 months before coming to Australia. George was very friendly and happy with the work, so he was a good addition to the team. Other than that, it was just another day, followed by beef schnitzel, potato "gems" and baked beans.
Laura & Mark 9th March (working day no. 12)
We worked, we ate spaghetti, we watched ER, we went to sleep.
Laura & Mark 10th March 2000 (working day no. 13)
We’d reached another Friday, which in reality felt like any other day except for the variation in our luncheon habits. We usually ate a selection of pate and jam sandwiches, raisin bread, biscuits, icy water and grapes. Today we had leftover spaghetti as a welcome change, but otherwise the day slunk by as any other. We followed it up with Friday night chilli con carne, and as we had to work Saturday, an early night.
Laura & Mark 11th March 2000 (working day no. 14)
Today positively flew by and we were soon driving back from the orchard, through the hot late-afternoon sunshine, to the swimming pool. Together we swam lots of lengths as well as diving and just splashing about. An hour and a bit later, we got out of the water feeling totally clean and refreshed, almost as though we had not just worked a full day and it wasn’t already 6 o’clock. We drove home to our caravan, where we cooked the fresh lasagne we’d bought and ate it, some French bread and butter and a refreshing glass of lemonade in front of the TV. Then, feeling fresh and wonderful, we went to sleep at 8pm as exhaustion overcame us.
Laura & Mark 12th March 2000
As we’d decided against going to Melbourne for the Grand Prix, we had to find a new place to watch it. We decided to go down to the pub and have a drink and hopefully a chat while we watched it on their big TV. Sadly, when we woke up at 8.30am and couldn’t get back to sleep, we still had a few hours left before the race. So, we wrote lots of diary, played loads of card games and ate lots of raisin toast with butter.

Eventually, we felt it was a reasonable time to head off direction town. We played a couple of games of pool in the pub, but other than us, the barmen and two or three local drinkers, the pub was deserted. We decided to stick it out and sat at the table in front of the TV. About half-way through the race, we decided to hurry back to the caravan park during an ad-break to watch the rest there as we were still alone in the pub. Back at the caravan park we relaxed in the much more comfy chairs and indulged in some Doritos as we watched The Schumakers and Barrichello lead the race to the end.

Once all the post-race interviews were over, we returned to our caravan and our card-playing. The rest of the day passed equally slowly and we were keen for evening to arrive. When it did, we watched The Simpsons and The First Wives Club, before snuggling, exhausted into our sleeping bags
Laura & Mark 13th March 2000 (working day no. 15)
Today is Labour Day, a public holiday in Australia. We woke up to the usual irritating bleeping of our alarm clock and were at the orchard at the usual time. We worked our full day while Australians all over the country enjoyed their long weekend. After work, we hurried to the swimming pool, the only thing open in Alexandra. It was also the last day the swimming pool would be open until spring as it cost far too much to be kept open.

The beautiful sunshine, the refreshing water, and the relaxing satisfied "end of working day" feeling was wonderful. As it began to get colder, we left the pool and returned to a tasty dinner of sweet and sour chicken and rice. As we had a late night Sunday, we were in bed by 20.30 tonight.
Laura & Mark 14th March 2000 (working day no. 16)
Collin was promoted today, the cheerful Scotsman was taken away from us to work with a new crew. His new position was no longer as picker, but as driver of a machine like ours, borrowed to help with the picking. His replacement was Patrick, an infuriatingly irritating full-of-himself Dutchman. He was friendly enough, yet he thought he knew everything better than us. He knew how to drive the machine better than Youngie, knew how to unload it better even though we’d been doing it for weeks, anything we mentioned he knew better. This grew increasingly annoying, though we did our best to ignore it.

After work we bought a new bulb for our brake light which was broken, took our rolls of film in for processing and did lots of shopping. Worn out from work we chose a pizza that would more or less cook itself once we’d lit the oven. Then we had yet another early night as there wasn’t much else to do.
Laura & Mark 15th March 2000 (working day no. 17)
We had been working in the same orchard out at Acheron for two and a half weeks, and we were nearly at the end of the picking. It was touch and go all day today whether we would finish or not. All the rows had been done by the machines, our only job now was to go back through them and pick any fruit which had been missed. With four machines on the job now, things went very quickly, but not quickly enough. As we left at 16.00 today, Adam told everyone it was the last day of work tomorrow, but we had all suspected as much. We decided to celebrate with a takeaway, a whole roast chicken and some delicious chips.
Laura & Mark 16th March 2000 (working day no. 18)
There was less and less fruit to pick as time went on today, and more and more crews had been sent home. At 1pm we got into the car and drove back to town. And that was it. The end of the work. The end of the nectarines. Such a satisfying feeling.

We spent two hours e-mailing and looking up things on the internet, then a little more shopping and back to the caravan park to relax. We made chilli con carne for dinner and despite not having to work tomorrow, we were still in bed before 10pm.