The Invisible Woman

The water company guys turned up in their vans today. To dig a hole and fix, for the umpteenth time the very fragile mains water pipe that runs inside the boundary of Hoppins Field.
Thankfully we have a borehole for our supplies so their burst pipes are a digging nuisance rather than a disaster here..

Anyway, it reminded me of an incident from a few years before we came to live here on site.
I'd come to the field to work in the morning, as usual, from where we used to live four miles away. The pipe fixing chaps turned up mid morning with a mini digger on a trailer towed behind a transit van and got on with their stuff.
Much later on in the day I went to say hello, shortly before one of them attempted a not- really- very-tricky trailer reversing manouvre.

I promise you, I didn't do any arm waving or 'helpful' "left hand down a bits" I made a point of not even watching. I know that none of that helps much..... Suffice to say, the backing up was botched.

I surmised from their general demeanour that they were not the sorts to take well to my 'doing it for them'.

 Egos outwardly burly, yet at the same time as fragile as the pipe...I truly do understand...honestly.

So I suggested that they instead, drive around, the then quite muddy track that circled the barn. 

"Take it a bit easy mind 'cos we all know how transits are off road."

Perhaps in light of this well meant advice, injudicious speeds had to be reached. 

You guessed it, they got badly stuck...ooops....So despite the fact that by now I needed to get home sharpish, I got the tractor out, towed them back to 'dry land', waved goodbye, and drove off home (in my car)

Probably not half an hour later the O.H. Who had been working locally in someone elses garden, called by to see how things were going.
He inquired of the gentlemen labourers as to whether they had espied his "missus" (ha!) during the day, as I was normally to be found working hereabouts...

"Er..No, we haven't seen anyone"

Priceless!

 It turns out that the fable that tells of 'Middle Aged Women becoming invisible' is actually true... Even whilst they are operating farm machinery?

...Spooky, but could it be turned to our advantage?

I have a cunning plan girls....Me....My tractor....A towing hook...And the cashpoint in the local town....No one will see a thing...

Actually there is a not quite so invisible (perhaps cos not middle aged) woman in this picture....come to show off her new land-rover...thrills and glamour....