about crashing the van last week because he called last tuesday asking if i’d help with something and while i was there he started talking about how the tree in the driveway needs to be trimmed. he couldn’t see around it and that’s why he crashed. yeah, righto mate. i’ll trim it then. i tried not to smile or laugh but i guess the eyes gave it away because he became a little insistent. it really was the tree. it really does need to be trimmed. so i got the ladder, chainsaw and hedge clippers out and trimmed it back. he was pretty stoked afterwards, saying i’d done fucking fantastic job, he could get the van around it now and not have to worry about his fishing rods getting tangled in the tree too. i knew i couldn’t keep a serious face much longer so i grabbed the ladder and climbed onto his roof. that was what he called for. some sparrows had been getting into his chimney and trapping themselves in there every morning. causing a racket. flying up and down the flue. upsetting the dog when he opens the fireplace door and they come shooting out and flying round the house. on the roof i took the little hat that sits over the chimney off and re-wrapped the mesh around it.
he’s like an elderly version of jimmy. i think that’s why we get along so well. they have the same erratic, restless temperament. i came to this realization a few days later while hanging off the side of the buggy to try stop it from tipping over because jimmy refused to give up on trying to drive it up a steep, muddy bank at the orari river. with only three wheels in contact with the earth. i think the engine revving gave me a ptsd flashback to the week before when the old bugger had the van tangled in the gate.
i mowed my neighbour’s lawn on thursday. then bob and sandra had the cheek to turn up that evening. apparently friday was a holiday in christchurch. if i’d known that i wouldn’t have mowed. well, yeah. i probably would’ve. i do love to mow some lawns. bob had asked a few weeks back if i’d keep them trimmed when he’s not there so he doesn’t have to start his weekends away by mowing a foot of grass. i’ve got another neighbour’s lawn to mow sometime this week since peter’s parking his car in his garage. it’s going to be a challenge but i think my mowing will be up to scratch. this dude is super methodical. he used to be a senior detective for the police in christchurch, solving murders and such. but he had a minor stroke about a year back and he’s gone from methodical to comically pedantic. like a fussy old nana.
on friday i painted the front of the garage since i never got around to it when i painted the rest of the place. i still have one more wall to paint but the cladding needs to be taken down and replaced. i’ll get around to it. sometime. i only painted the garage because peter got some tomato plants from somewhere and the front of the garage is a good, sunny spot for tomatoes and i knew if i planted one there i wouldn’t get that job done any time this summer. about 3pm the phone rang. “jimmy, what are you up to?” i’m painting the garage. “ah, fuck that, drop everything we’re going whitebaiting, be ready in ten minutes.”
so we went whitebaiting. we drove the buggy down the beach, jimmy never considered the fuel situation though. they weren’t catching any on the side of the river we were on so we tried to take the long way around to the other side. up and down the river. past a grumpy looking old man. jimmy waved but he didn’t wave back. he had a set net in the river, he probably wasn’t too happy with us ploughing through the water in the buggy. a bit further down the river we pass another grumpy old man with a set net. jimmy says, “fuck, these old buggers don’t look too impressed.” ah fuck’em, he hasn’t been impressed since that one time nana took her teeth out. jimmy loves a crude joke. about two more grumpy old men after that he taps the fuel gauge, “why are we on empty?” for fuck’s sake, jimmy.
we drove home along the road. and made it somehow. friday’s fish and chip night, fuck i’d have been pissed off if i’d have missed my fish and chips.
we went back to the orari the next day, saturday afternoon. with a full tank. the reason jimmy was in a rush on friday is because a mate was there and had caught 10lb of whitebait that morning. we saw him there the next day, he lives nearby. we were parked on the north bank, he was on the south bank. is that old mate, over there? yeah, he hasn’t seen us. so we just parked there and watched him for a bit. laughing. look at him strutting back and forth. striking a pose while scoffing a beer. laughing too loudly. stopping every now and then to chew some poor bugger’s ear off. yeah, that’s him alright.
this is where we got the buggy stuck. it sounded about as tired as i felt by the time we got it out. we’d sucked a bunch of water into the air intake so it was coughing and spluttering. it was about then that jimmy finally realized he wasn’t going to be able to drive it up that bank so we parked it and walked. i was exhausted by the time we got to the river mouth and somewhat thankfully there wasn’t any whitebait being caught. we hitched a ride back to the buggy with our mate. he’s growing a stache for movember. it’s trimmed at corners of his mouth. looks disgusting. 10/10. i realized mine’s a year old now.
normally i think fishing is fucking boring. except with a torpedo. friday and saturday evenings we launched fishing torpedoes. jimmy and tooki are having technical issues with theirs. i helped bob launch his on saturday evening while jimmy and tooki fucked around trying to get their torpedo to launch. they still managed to catch a fish though, there were so many kahawai and the sea was so calm at one point tooki just casually wandered down to the water and grabbed one. never seen that before. me and bob caught a bunch of elephant fish.
on saturday evening right before bob came to get me to go fishing with him i walked out the front door to find peter in the yard with the garden hose. shooting it over the hedge into bob’s property. “have a shower, bob!” and bob’s shouting back, “oi! oi! piss off!” it reminded me so much of bryce. my brother visited the next day, sunday afternoon. his friend and their family visited too. funnily enough, bryce got into trouble that day for squirting people with the hose.
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