I’m happy to be a journalist. I’m actually happy to be a writer, full stop! But I like working as a journalist because it puts me out there in the world and then allows me to write about it and as an avid writer, I’m as happy as a rogue chook in a vegie patch to be doing something I love!
The upside of this kind of work is the variety. I meet some amazing people, some of whom are well known and see some amazing things and have clocked up some great advantages. Like a free ride on the local historic railway and some of the best home cooking via the local branch of the Country Women’s Association (“Have something to eat before you go…!”) and the Ladies Bowling Team (“Have something to eat…!”) and a miriad of other local events that inevitably feature food of some description which the organisers insist I eat some of before I head back to the office and work my magic as a respected wordsmith. I love it! It’s great!
I have also scored cuddles of cute animals, shook hands with minor celebs and been handed some fine snippets of juicy information and gained access to places that most people don’t and it’s all good fun. Plus I get to let my mind run free which gets my creative juices flowing and, well, talk about a dream job.
But then there’s the downside; like the very early morning calls because something newsworthy is happening and I’m the closest person with a camera to the location or there’s an urgent story and even though it’s my day off…it needs to be written and I’m deemed the best person for that particular article, which is actually pretty flattering. Or I’m just in the right place at the right time when something’s going down.
The reason I bring it up here today is because very early this morning the roof blew off our local pub! Huge winds tore through our little village and half the roof of the old historic pub ended up in big pieces all down the highway and someone had the forethought to call it in to one of the newspaper staff (who may have still been in bed herself)? who promptly called me because I was a lot closer, seeing as I live in the Village and all. Being very early when the call came in (and it being my day off), I was still in bed for sure, but managed to wake up enough to throw on some clothes and hot foot it up the road to the pub within minutes. Pretty good effort seeing as I hadn’t even had a cuppa and normally I can’t function without that first cup of tea in the morning! But hey, it was big news and all the emergency crews were there etc and I got some amazing pics of roofing insulation dangling from the wires of an electrical pole, not to mention the the pub itself with half its roof missing and what was left of the trusses waving forlornly in the still-strong wind!
But that’s life on the job I guess and if it didn’t have the occasional hiccup I could become too used to the perks of the job (those cupcakes a few weeks back were simply delicious!) and that would be a real shame. But I so do love this type of work and it’s still a real treat for me to see my own words and images staring back at me from a newspaper page, not to mention the satisfaction I get from seeing my own by-line!
Seriously! Never a dull moment!