On The Level
A Brickies Tale
by
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I don't know about you, but with me, every time I get a longhaul flight, I always manage to end up with a big fat, often smelly bloke next to me, with the manners of a pig who will burp and fart, stick his elbows in my ribs and then insist on telling me his life story, including all the operations he's had, why he's been married six times and how people always hate fat people and then fall asleep and dribble all over you. Today was no exception to the rule. I had a window seat, and I saw the bloke I knew was going to plonk himself down beside me before he had even found his seat number. Sure enough he shoe horned himself into the seat next to me, "Can you lift your arm rest, I need to sit down", he said. I read the safety card and started to read a magazine I'd found in the seat in front of me but it was too late "Hi" he said, "My name is Eric, Im Australian, I sell vending machines, I've just been to a convention in London and just sold over two hundred machines this week". God, I thought you must have also eaten the contents of each one as well. As we taxied down the runway, he babbled on relentlessly about profit margins, projected sales and how much money he was going to earn in commission when he got back home. By now I'd almost lost the will to live and just as I was about to be extremely rude to my new mate Eric, along came a airhostess and gave me some headphones. Peace at last. I turned up the volume to full and that was the end of Eric, well almost!
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About the Book
This is the true story of two Bricklayers David and Scott, who met at technical college in 1978, where they were both studying to become bricklayers. They quickly became firm friends, and after completing their apprenticeships worked together as a team and eventually started a small construction company.
Things were going swimmingly for them both until the recession of the late 1980's began to bite deep and the construction industry began to slowly collapse around them. As jobs became increasingly scarce and harder to find with wages dropping dramactically on a weekly basis, they found the only way to beat the recession was to leave England and their families to find work abroard in the vain hope of earning enough money to be able to pay their mortgages and keep their homes by what ever means it took to achive it.
As they begin their travels starting in Holland it goes to prove that not speaking the language or understanding simple things like culture or even road signs can lead to situations that quickly get out of hand and cause no end of problems!! The two of them suddenly find that ignorance quickly results in their small problems becoming extremely large problems and as they expand their travels following the money through Europe using Scotts VW Camper as their mode of transport, they find that things can only go from bad to worse, a lot worse!!
About the Author
David Bruce is a bricklayer by trade, that is what he does for a living and has been for the best part of thirty years but what he has become is a prolific traveler who began his travels through necessity before and during the last recession along with his best mate Scott in an attempt to beat the recession and hold on to his house by plying his trade in various countries around the world.
The tally of different countries currently stands at sixteen, although not all of them get a mention in the books purely because some were only very short term contracts, or boring as there was nothing of interest to report!
As this the first book of the trilogy goes to print both he and his wife have recently just returned from Australia (September 2008) and he thinks he has maybe at last after nearly thirty years of wandering the globe, tools in hand! found his shangri-la and possible end stop! but now it is November and the weather is begining to turn cold and ugly, and yet another recession is starting to bite deep............Itchy feet are begining to take hold yet again and the wander lust may not quite yet be at an end!!......