You take a job for the fence.
You don't always realise you're signing up for everything around it.
This one was 100 metres of timber down in Geelong. Long run, honest work. The kind of job that settles into your bones before you've even unloaded the tools. You know you're going to be there a while.
And that's the thing about fencing — it moves you around. You don't sit in an office staring at the same four walls. One week you're in Melbourne's inner suburbs, tight boundaries, coffee cups on every corner. Next minute you're down the coast, wind rolling in, space opening up, things a little slower, a little quieter.
Geelong's got its own feel to it.
You notice it when you're setting out a line — the way the ground changes under your feet, a bit softer in places, a bit more give. The breeze comes through different too. Not blocked by buildings. It carries sound, carries smells. Salt in the air if you're close enough.
You stop for a second and realise this is part of the job. Not the fence itself — that's straightforward. Posts, rails, palings. Repeat it a hundred metres and you've got your result.
It's everything in between.
It's the neighbour who leans over for a chat halfway through the day. The dog that decides you're either its best mate or its biggest problem. The way the light shifts across the timber as you work your way down the line.
You notice houses too. Old ones, new ones, half-renovated ones. You start to see how people live without really trying. Backyards tell you a lot. What gets looked after, what gets ignored, what someone started and never quite finished.
And all the while, you're just building a fence.
There's something about the repetition of it — post after post, metre after metre — that gives your head space to wander. You think about nothing and everything at the same time. It's not forced. It just happens.
By the time you're halfway through 100 metres, you're in it. Not rushing, not dragging. Just moving forward, steady. The line getting longer behind you, shorter in front.
It's simple work, but it's not empty.
You look back at the end of it — a clean run of timber, straight and solid — and yeah, there's satisfaction in that. There always is.
But there's also everything you picked up along the way.
Because fencing, for all it is, has this way of showing you places you wouldn't otherwise stop in. Corners of Melbourne and beyond that don't make it into brochures or weekend plans.
You see it properly.
One fence at a time.