John Durr opens the Queens Street Men's shed last week
They say we men never talk . Maybe our wives are right and we need to talk to each other more than we do ; to talk to someone who knows what its like to be out there in the cold and damp , with the back and the forth , with the making do and the making up; all those unexpected but awefully real ups and the downs of the struggle with nature and low returns .
Proved true at the shed on Wednesday .
Even though I have lived here for a good part of my life, I was reminded again last Wednesday of the number of people who live without around here ; who don't even have decent footwear in gumboot country ( not that i noticed any there on the day) . But there was the friend Chris talked about who had socks in plastic bags to keep the water out and the famous runner I knew whose only gumboots had the sides completely worn through.
Not that we are often overwhelmed by these things , but you don't share your own coping strategies lightly .At
Blokes business days we enjoy celebrating how we mange to cope in our special roles as productive ice cream men in our shared space of great beauty ,productivity and purpose.
You see the place of a man is with his dog and away from all thats ordered and nice.
We blokes learn to celebrate the tough disordered stuff of making do in an environment that often works us to our limits, and pays us little in real comfort payments.
