.....and drunkenness and chimneys

If you're contemplating pulling down your old chimney I recommend thinking again.....

I was over at my buddies the other day, we were chewing the fat and drinking beer as usual and I'd asked if I could borrow his F type crimp tool for television antenna connections.

I'd finally got around to getting a new aerial for my bedroom television but the cable connection at the antenna end was, as they all are now, F type.

So it was raining and climbing on the roof seemed like a story with bad news written all over it, so after crimping the connector on I bailed on the dodgey roof installation and instead, opted for the safer more comfortable, lets get on the piss option.

Given the task we'd just performed talk eventually turned to roofs in general and especially the dangers and pitfalls of tile roofs, which of course mine is. It was while we were running through this style of roofs many downsides that I remembered the day my friend John and I decided that we were man enough to demolish the chimney on another of my houses which I had owned some years before.

I think John Dennis has appeared in this blog on other occasions (of corned beef and genetic stupidity if I recall correctly, there may be others....) Anyway I've said it before and I'll say it again, John was/is a top bloke, a good fella, a wonderful old stick and all round hard case and character. That aside he has also been a bloody good mate to me at different times through my often troubled and tumultuous life.

John is a builder by trade and a drinker by profession so when you have just recently bought an old 1940's villa there can be no better man to have around than John especially when the significant other has remodeling plans in mind and John considers beer to be more than adequate currency.

So John and I had been busy re-lining the lounge walls with new Gibraltar board, (some would call it drywall) as the old matched lining and skrim was a little disconcerting during storms when the wind would blow and the wallpaper would flap away from the walls like some sort of bizarre indoor spinnaker.

We had spent the first half of the day gluing and screwing the new sheets of gib to the now exposed noggings and had decided to take a break for some lunch and a much deserved beer or two...... or three or four.... So as we sat in the kitchen admiring our handiwork and slowly getting a little bleary, my now ex partner pointed out how useless and ugly the fireplace was......

To be honest we had never used it but the job of doing anything with it seemed somewhat insurmountable to a lowly electrician such as myself and so it had not been considered into the remodeling scheme of things....

until now.....

"Well" said John with a twinkle in his eye and decidedly slurred lilt to his speech. "It's pretty bloody easy to bowl a chimney bro...."

Really, I hadn't even considered the chimney, my concern was the hearth and the odd little space that it occupied.... Truthfully I would have just walled the bastard mess off and fuck the chimney!

So we would have lost a small part of the lounge but really I couldn't have cared less, less space, less to heat I thought... and the chimney..... it's out of sight from the lounge, just leave it where it is....

Ahhhhh but alas, the game was on. A seed of an idea had burrowed in and taken root and the undeniable attraction to smash some shit up was irresistible to a couple of well sauced kiwi blokes such that we were.

So armed with a six pack and a sledge hammer each we clambered our way up on to the roof with much guffawing and joviality and took a masterful look at the job at hand.

My missus at this junction was looking all hell of a pleased as unknown to me she had wanted to see the end of the godawful fire place an mantel since we had taken ownership of the house.

The afternoon was getting on a little by now as John and I had stopped working on the walls at just after midday and our boozey lunch had gone on for a good two or three hours so with out a moments ado we got stuck in to it and cracked on.

Now John explained to me that the art of bringing down a brick chimney was to minimize the amount of walking one did across the tile roof as those old terracotta tiles tended to get a bit fragile as time went on. So what we would do was to knock down the bricks at the very top of the chimney and allow them to fall neatly down the inside of the chimney thus eliminating all danger to the delicate roof tiles.

"Alright" I said, "lets knock this bitch over".

Well that chimney may have been old but it was not in the least bit frail and despite how it looked from the ground, it was tall. Despite our inebriation we did not hit out at it like a pair of Canadian hockey players but had applied gentle taps at the top, but to no avail. After several minutes of ineffectiveness I threw caution to the wind, wound up and fired off a half decent swing at the bastard. To my chagrin I managed to miss my target for the most part and skimmed the hammer off the side of the damn thing, unbalanced myself on the sloping roof and ended up dropping the head of the hammer to the roof. Immediately the roof tiles, which totally unlike the chimney bricks appeared to be made out of old cake frosting flew immediately into a thousand shards and vanished into a gaping hole in the roof.......

"Ooooopppppssss". "Ah well not too bad, only took out two tiles, it'll be okay bro heh heh"

"Best we be careful brother I've only got about four spare tiles...."

At least now we know how hard we need to hit this thing to break it apart.

Actually little did either of us know but my blow had actually fractured most of the mortar at the uppermost portion of the stack and when John rounded off the next blow with enough force to crack the neighbors chimney 100 yards off we were most surprised when the top 2 feet of bricks on his side collapsed inwards in a lump comprised of probably eight or nine bricks still semi locked together with ancient mortar. Unfortunately so big was the chunk that before it fell completely down the inside of the chimney it crashed hard against the inside of the chimney on my side.

This resulted in a downpour of loose bricks which crashed around my feet and shattered several more roof tiles on my side........

Oooooops.

This time we couldn't help but laugh, Jesus, why was it that everything we touched always seemed to go pear shaped and smell so strongly of lemons!!!

We should have given it away when we saw the missus leaving.

We didn't.

It wasn't getting any earlier and so with promises that we would be more careful we continued bravely onwards. Truthfully, now that the first bricks had gone it started to come apart a lot easier and we had knocked nearly half the height of the stupid thing down before I thought about what would be happening down in the lounge room........

Ooooooops.....

It was time to get more beer anyway so we fell down the ladder and made our unsteady way towards the kitchen fridge. It was as we were walking past the lounge windows that we noticed the fog inside.... WTF!

So the bricks had been coming down the chimney all right. Down the chimney and across the hearth to build a reasonably decent pile on the floor.... the beautiful polished Tawa floor... ... . . not so bad, a few deep scratches here and there but nothing that wouldn't buff out we laughed....

But the dust.....

The dust was spectacular! There was dust on every surface, the kids photos, the sofas, the cushions, the light fittings I tell you, there was dust on the fucking toilet seat three rooms away and what wasn't already covered in a layer of dust would be for another three years later when the rest of it fell out of the air!

The note on the door, left by the fleeing other half was simple and to the point, "You two idiots are fucking useless".

So it took us a while to stop laughing but we gathered up the remaining two six packs in the fridge, rolled a spliff and headed back up the ladder to the roof.

Being that the fire place was now mostly blocked with bricks and mortar we wisely decided that it would be best at this junction to stop putting more down the chute and instead we would simply throw them over the side of the roof to the ground below.

Ah, ha. Sounds simple right?

Wrong.

My first throw was good.

My second was a little short and that took care of a decent section of the gutter in that area, the damn plastic was as flimsy as the cursed roof tiles. Ah well nothing for it but to laugh really.

My next throw came up even shorter and smashed through another half a dozen roof tiles....

Oooooops.

By now the two of us have given up all pretence of care and are rolling around in stitches, the damage is colossal!

This is an unprecedented failure on an epic scale.

The missus is gunna skin me.

Ah fuck it were screwed now might as well just get it done.

Ooooops

John has fallen down holding a huge chunk of bricks and half his torso has vanished through the goddamn roof.

Okay so this isn't working out so well. So we stop to finish the second half of the joint, lick our wounds and reassess the situation.

"Dude this plan needs a contingency...." I suggest,

"Your right bro" says the always effervescent John.....


"I've got it" he says. "It's simple man, we'll form a line....".

Suffice to say, this was not the deliverance we had hoped for and in fact added only further to the calamity of the whole debacle as we both managed to drop many more clusters of bricks and only the fact that roof tiles were fast becoming quite the scarcity on this particular corner of my roof, did the damage remain in a state no worse than tragic.
Unfortunately however the ceiling in several spots over my daughters bed did not escape so lightly and several clusters of bricks also managed to find their way into the hallway and the master bedroom via the ceiling....


It was just getting dark when the other half turned up....

John thought it best to make himself scarce... no man likes to see his mate being thrashed by a woman, I had to agree so we left via the front door as she came in the back.

All I know is that tile roofs can suck and if you have a chimney that you don't want and a tile roof... pay someone to get rid of it, at least they'll be insured and they can take the heat from the dragons breath if they make a hash of it......

and very large Kingfish.....

We've had a very wet summer.

It's easy to bemoan the fact but really it's been at least 10 years since we've had a really wet summer so I won't start complaining.

The other thing about having had ten years of good summers is that you forget some of the positive things that come along with a less than optimal summer.

One thing that we tend to get in New Zealand preceding and during a wet summer is, warm sea temperatures very early on in the season.

And why, you might ask, is this a positive?

Well for one thing, it brings the big game fish in close to the shore so that those of us who don't have the good fortune to own or have use of a large overnight type pleasure boat, can head out on fishing charters or in small day trips in smaller vessels and catch impressively large sport fish like Marlin, Blue-fin and Yellow-fin Tuna, Albacore and large shark.

Okay so if you don't like fishing there's not much of a positive coming from this wet summer lark I'll grant you, but hey, for me it's a plus. I caught large Albacore this year nah nah nahnah nah.

Anyway..... my son Luke, avid fisherman that he is managed to hook two good sized Kingfish while fishing off the rocks a little way north of Auckland some weeks ago. If you don't know the species here's a photo of the boy and his fish.

I suppose it's important to remember that the kid is about 6ft 2in so they are reasonable sized fish and nowhere near as big as they can get......

So seeing these two gargantuan fish reminded me of one of those almost long forgotten moments I had that probably fits well within the scope of a tale, woeful and miss-adventurous.....

Having always had a strong affinity with the sea you will usually find the trunk of any car I've ever owned or for that matter the truck I now own, cluttered with a selection of devices useful when at the beach, no surfboards anymore but usually a body-board a selection of wet-suits, a weight belt, mask, snorkel, a collection of different fins and until recently a spear gun and a catch bag. This summer has been the most empty the back of my truck has been due to the somewhat dismal weather.

So sometime ago I had decided that for something to do one weekend I'd take myself off somewhere different for a bit of a change and headed off to Port Waikato south of Auckland and out to the wild west coast.

By the time I arrived at the port it was getting on towards early evening so I did a quick scoot out on to the sand dunes to find a place reasonably free of wind where I could park the truck and set up camp for the night. Having found a good spot and familiarized myself with the area so I could find my way back in the dark I thought I might go up to the shop near the wharf and see if I could get some fish and chips for dinner.

So as I sat outside the quaint little convenience/takeaway store eating fresh fish and gigantic oil saturated chips, letting the peaceful veil of dusk settle over me, local kids began to appear out of the dusky light armed with fishing poles little pails and gleaming eyes.

I watched them for awhile and contemplated heading back out on to the beach for a G and T and to watch the sun drop over the edge of the sea but the sound of the kids excited chatter eventually won me over and I wiped the grease from my hands and meandered over to the end of the wharf to see what would bring so many kids from seemingly nowhere to this particular little spot.

When I got out to the end of the wharf I found a happy little bunch of perhaps ten kids, all boys except for one girl, aged from about 8 to 12 years. They were 'wowing' and being typically excited as kids that age are when out at night and competition is thick in the air.... Except for the little girl, who was probably the eldest, all the boys were jumping around and vying for 'the spot' which apparently netted the most, best or biggest fish.

They were fishing with tiny hooks that they baited with a flour and water dough with a dash of aniseed oil thrown in the mix and the 'target species' was sprats. Honestly there were so many of the little bastards down there one would only have required a sinker on a line and by dropping it in the water you would surely knock at least one of those little suckers unconscious after which it could have been picked out of the water with a short handled butterfly net!

Anyway the kids were having a great old time and were wheeling little sprats in by the dozen all the while telling stories about the 'big ones' they had seen here or caught here, you know how it goes... guys and their fishing stories...... The young girl as I recall was suitably unimpressed of course.

As the tide turned and the water below began to slowly rise toward us I started to notice that the schools of sprats would at times vanish out of the light being cast by the lamp mounted on a post at the end of the pier, only to return an instant later, thick in numbers and floating lazily in the current, then vanishing again in the blink of an eye only to return as before.

I asked the nearest child I was standing to about this; a young Maori boy, bare footed and snotty nosed. "Awwww yeah cuzz" he drawls at me, "sometimes there's alota big fish come here ay cuzz, and they scare all the little fullas away for a bit". I laughed inwardly at the idea of this gorgeous little fellas idea of a 'big' fish and continued to watch the sprats.... slowly letting my eyes drift out of focus and allowing my mind to wander......

That was when I saw it!

It was either a very fast moving fish or a decent sized one but regardless I know what I saw and it was a big splash of silver.

None of the kids seemed to have noticed it but I was awake again now and I started to pay attention! Sure enough it wasn't long before the sprats vanished and again a large silver splash appeared several feet blow the surface. My first thought was of large Trevally or Kahawai which made perfect sense either, either I was now interested and was starting to run inventory on what I had in the truck...shit!

I knew I didn't have a fishing rod but I did have some mono filament. I asked one of the kids if anyone had any decent sized hooks or sinkers.... Nope only sprat sized tackle... shit, shit, shit.

I remember about then the little girl made the first excited move she had made all night and at the same time sprats burst from the water and the predator that had brought them up followed them all the way to the surface.

KINGFISH

It was a fucking Kingfish and not one but several of them.

I was just about frantic by now, damnit.... there must be something I can use around here, a bat, a long pole... a fucking gun!!!!!

OMG!

SPEARGUN - ta da!

I had the spear gun in the back of the truck.

The kids by now had stopped fishing and were solely focused on just trying to catch a glimpse of the giant fish that were circling the wharf occasionally coming close to the surface to drag their backs along the barnacles on the barely submerged timbers supporting the structure of the wharf below us.

I ran back to the truck fumbling for my keys my hands trembling with excitement. How lucky would this be! Fresh Kingfish steaks over the coals for breakfast... oh yeah.

I opened the back door and hauled my trusty Beauchat out gave the rubber a quick check under the interior light and raced back up the wharf.

Boys being boys the kids were awestruck by the sight of an, 'anything' that shoots things and crowded around trying to get a better look at the awesome instrument of death whilst looking at me with equally awestruck and shining faces. They all had questions, would I definitely be able to kill a Kingfish with it, would I really be able to get it while I wasn't in the water, what else had I killed with it, could they have some of the fish when I killed it and so it went. Honestly I was starting to feel a bit like the clever and cool townie with all the cool stuff. Better get this thing done and stat!

I asked them if they could keep fishing because their little baits kept the sprats in a place where if the Kingies came to the top again I would have a clear shot.

The tide by now had come in substantially and it was getting late. I knew 1 of 2 things was likely to happen soon.

1) the kids would have to go home and I would lose my baits or

2) one of their parents was going to turn up and go ballistic at me for flourishing a spear gun around their children.

It struck me that time was of the essence....

I was busy congratulating myself on my fine fortune, having the spear gun in the car and that being that the tide was well toward in, the water was only a mere 2 or 3 feet blow me and my chances of missing such a large target was virtually impossible, when one of the Kings appeared virtually side on and directly in front of me!!!

I didn't so much aim as point. I wasn't really used to shooting above water from a semi crouched position rather than with arm fully extended so it was a bit of a shot from the hip so to speak.

I knew from experience that the spear landed deep but what I didn't know was how and where but that wasn't really the thought that was most pertinent to me at that moment.........

What suddenly struck me was the speed at which the slack line attached to my spear was being taken up.......

I think I was still thinking exactly that thought when the line came up taught. For a moment I was still in a semi crouch.... but only for a moment.....

In the flash of time it takes to say "oh sh...." I was over the edge and into the water.

So lets recap

I'm fully dressed.

It's dark.

The water is cold.

I've got no wetsuit.

I've got no fins.

I've got 50lbs of wounded but not apparently critically wounded muscle, designed for the environment I am now in, attached to a 300 pound break strain line and it's making a desperate bid to go to the bottom.

Kill me now!

So I kick out for the surface, no mask, no fins, can't see a fucking thing. Damn that bastard is strong!

I refuse to let go of my gun and I haven't got a knife of course so I struggle in the water treading like a mad man my head bobbing up and down, occasionally an extra powerful tug sees me yanked under and I come up spluttering and choking. I figure I'm reasonably near the wharf, I can tell by the light so I strike out for it and immediately smash my hand into something and at the same moment my head collides with a post at the end of the wharf. Fucking barnacles!

I can hear the kids on the wharf and they're making a hell of a racket. God I think... they're probably freaking out really bad, that poor little girl is going to have nightmares for years.

Thankfully I can feel the fight going out of the fish and I struggle around the side of the wharf to the landing stairs and drag myself up onto the lowest step and start hauling the line in until I can grab the stupid fish and drag it up onto the wharf.

I can still hear the kids and now I can see some of them peering at me as I lie on the wharf gasping for air.... one of them seems to be crying so I sit up to make sure they are okay.....

The little girls is on the ground doubled up.... They're all laughing but that girl.... she is fit to burst.

I tell you.

They are crying and holding each other up and as I catch my breath and as they start heading off back up the wharf toward the shop I could still hear them laughing even as they headed off through the darkness.

I still remember quite clearly that little snotty nosed kid that first spoke to me wandering up, tears still fresh in his eyes as he held out his hand and said to me. "Hey townie, here's your bloody keys ay". He handed me my truck keys and dragged his snotty nose down the sleeve of his shirt, flicked his head back at me and started wandering off up the wharf. He stopped after a few steps and turned back to look at me and said, "Hey townie, you sure showed that fish ay cuzz" and he burst out laughing as he staggered off into the night.

You know.... I swear I can still hear him laughing......

Currently Listening to:

An eclectic mix of various sounds sent to me by the love of my life.

Thank you Angela for so many things.