COMPRESSED 210917SHDTimFletcherCOMPRESSED 210917SHDJohnLeHuquet

A day in the life of....
our Caretaker in Moray 

Hello, my name is Tim Fletcher and I have the job title of Caretaker.  My role is to carry out Factoring duties in the Moray area on behalf of the Association and the department I work for is Property and Estate Management.

So I start my day with bundling my piece break flask and sandwich for lunch into my day sack, unplug my works phone and lone working device, as I refer to as " my tracker " as this alerts GHA should be involved in an accident, fall ill and identifies my location at that time and make my way to the works van to meet my assistant John and load up the equipment we'll use during the course of the day.  We connect a trailer that carries a number of bins, mowers and other gardening equipment.  The vehicle is loaded by 8.30am and we start our day.

First location today is out to Lossiemouth, once on site and parked up we set about picking litter, hand grabbers and black bags at the ready.  This large scheme of 120 properties and a lot of open space takes on average 30 minutes to collect about 2 bags full each.  Back to the van where we start to prepare for the cleaning of the communal landings and stairs of 7 blocks of flats.  If we find any damage or lights not working we report this back to the Elgin Office to get fixed.  The work is interrupted with the morning piece break.  Everything stops for tea or so the saying goes, but we also need to check our phone for calls and emails.  We finish the work, store all the equipment away back in the van and unload the lawn mowers from the trailer, check them over, fill and start what seems like the never ending job of grass cutting, ear protectors on.  Thank goodness for headphones and a portable radio, as we start our daily 7 km walk, up and down, up and down, well you get the idea.

The morning soon passes and around 12.30pm lunch is eaten in the van, 1 o'clock comes around too soon and back to work.  One of the shrubbed flower beds has a number of annual weeds trying to take over, so some work is needed to clear the ground of  these, gardening forks out of the van along with a couple of small rubble bags to collect the weeds in, some areas we spray a weed killer, but this is not one of them, so back to basics and hand digging and removal of the weeds.

Once done its back to the van and head back to Elgin to start a number of gardens that are part of our assisted garden maintenance programme for tenants unable to look after their gardens.  We pull up at a property unload a mower and strimmer, one of us will mow, the other strimming the edges and then with the use of a blower clear any grass or debris from paths etc, load everything back up and off to the next property.  Here the tenant wants to be notified of our arrival before any work is started, we ring the bell and a very short time later the door is answered with the usual comment " you two again", same day and time each visit "like clockwork you two" and so the process is repeated.   Five properties need to be completed and this takes us up to the end of the day around 4.30pm when we start to head back.  Once back we check our phone for any emails or calls that need a reply, then unload the van and store the trailer safely away and  confirm the next day's work and discuss any issues.  At 5 o'clock it's time to set off home. 

Until tomorrow!

 

 

 

 

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