Pay Little Pay Twice

On Thursday we successfully moved into the new house and officially became residents of Wodonga, Victoria.

We've settled in quite nicely despite being short of many items which we would normally regard as necessities.

The girls are sleeping in the double bed we've purchased for the spare bedroom, but the wife and I are sleeping on the two sofas we bought.

We've also bought a fridge. Despite the wife's advice I got it from a couple of lads who advertise in the local paper. They basically buy busted fridges and washing machines and repair them to sell on. I gave them a ring and arranged to go around and look at their wares. They were friendly sorts and I spent a bit of time chatting about fridges and life in general, as you do.

Mark and Craig were their names and Mark, who has spent time in the UK, became the first person over here to pick me as a Welshman. In doing so proving himself to have a very keen ear and an extensive knowledge of the extremely varied subject of British accents and dialects. Craig seemed mildly pleased when I told him his name translates to 'rock' in Welsh.

Anyhow, having taken a liking to the lads I decided to ignore the wife's advice and have one of their fridges. Not only were they decent lads, but the fridge, at $350, was $200 cheaper than its nearest rival. It also fitted perfectly into the back of our car, once all the seats were down, thus saving us a delivery fee.

That's where the good news ends however. Although we'd checked it over in Craig's garage, when we got it home and plugged it in, it made a right old racket. I've heard quieter fire alarms.

I tried all the usual, universal remedies – 're-booted' it, kicked it, opened and closed the doors, played about with the thermostat, all to no avail. In our big empty house with it's opera-house style acoustics, it sounded like a jet engine.

The next day, after a noisy, sleepless night, I gave the boys a ring and Mark came around that afternoon. We got chatting again and it turns out that Mark is only a refrigeration engineer, or 'fridgey', by day and, at nights and weekends, is a stand-up comedian. How often does that happen to you?!

He told me all about his career to date. How, at the age of 34 and against the wishes of his wife at the time, he entered a talent contest in Melbourne. He'd been a 'fridgey' for all of his working life, but he'd wanted to do stand-up for his entire life. He won the contest but ended up losing his wife. She decided she didn't want to be married to a comic.

That was eight years ago and since that night in Melbourne, he's performed all over Australia in some of the country's most prestigious venues. In October he's attempting to get into the Guinness Book of Records by performing a world-record, thirty, half-hour shows in seven days. If you look closely at the photograph at the top of this entry you can see the poster advertising his act.

As well as being a funny bloke, Mark also managed to quieten the fridge down, although he is returning this week to replace the compressor. You can't say fairer than that.

The Fridge Man is a cool bloke.

Who knows, we may even become friends.