The New Year has kicked in and things are busy with a fair bit of work around the place.

Meg is going well and plans are still underway for the house – we are just waiting on plumbers and earthmovers to get back to us before submitting the final plans to council.

It hasn’t been that hot in recent weeks, in fact I think that December was pretty cool overall with only a couple of days in the thirties. But that probably means that we’ll be in for a hot January, February and March.

Raph has been staying with us off and on since the end of Uni last year and today we were working on a few things at the folks place where the bandwidth is plentiful.

Leaving to return home a bit after 5pm, we turned onto Emu Flat Road and chatted away as I drove with the empty trailer bouncing along behind us in the dust.

The narrow, twisting, potholed dirt road has a couple of blind corners and crests, but I travel along it daily so I normally know what to look out for.

The first surprise was the ute with a long trailer carrying what looked like a huge comb from a harvester. There was enough room for both vehicles and both trailers to pass and I thought nothing more about it as we continued on our way, but as we reached the next crest the harvester appeared, dodging the trees and taking up all of the road.

That’s where the fun started as I quickly hit the brakes and started to reverse back down the road to a wider section at a property entrance.

I looked across at Raph as I weaved a little heading backwards and he had a questioning expression on his face. The steering wheel picked up speed – left, then right, left – as I tried to combine reversing speed with keeping the trailer from jack-knifing.

50 metres later we were both laughing as Raph realised that the trailer was the reason that we were all over the road and the harvester was well and truly upon us – the driver having a good laugh as well as we zig zagged down the road. We eventually pulled off the road and gave him a wave as he went on his way with a story to tell his mates.

Raph and i were still chatting about it when we reached the intersection at Benny’s Hill Rd and found a selection of nice cars and people milling about, obviously lost.

A quick chat revealed that they were part of the local car club – the Northern Automotive Restoration Club, heading to a meeting at a members place.

I’ve recently done some work with them, so knew where they were headed and was able to give them directions back up the hill to the property.

Halfway through my explanation, one of the group came over to interrupt and the bloke that I was talking to said: “Don’t worry, we’ve got a local here that knows where we’re going.”

And there it was. After nearly two years of living in Clare I’ve been called a local.

Of course that comment prompted another conversation about becoming a local for the rest of the trip home and afterwards.