Smoke gets in your eyes

And it certainly does when it doesn't go up the chimney. Let me explain. We spent a most pleasant overnight stay with my step daughter on Saturday, the occasion being our grandson's 9th birthday. Herself had put her heart & soul into his present. A beautifully executed duvet cover which he absolutely loves. She put his name on it & all. When we got home, we found the cover off our chimney in Herself's garden & the bit of pipe that sticks out the chimney had a decidedly skew wiff & jaunty air to it. Looking at the state of the cover, we decided that it was time for a replacement. While the plumber was up there I asked him what shape the chimney was in & was told not too bad. I told him I had a set of brushes & he volunteered to give it the old brush up. And down. naturally he had to do the down bit first, but you already knew that.

He fitted the new bits & cleared my blocked down pipe as well while he was up there. You wouldnt think that seeds as small as those that come off our Beech tree could clog spouting, but they do. I've still got to get up & clear the rest of the spouting before the rain really starts, but thats not what this is about.

I decided later to light the fire to keep herself warm when she woke up. I think I'm finally coming right energy wise. I no longer really feel the need to have a regular afternoon nap anymore, but thats not what this is about either. When I opened the door on the fireplace to toss a bit more wood in & smoke billowed forth, I sort of got the idea that all was not well in Pyromania. (Thats not a real country, I just made it up in a sad attempt at humour.) In fact there was quite a bit of smoke. Enough shall we say to give me every confidence that should the disastrous happen, we will get plenty of warning about it from the smoke alarms. it really doesnt take a lot to set them off you know. Anyway, I rang the plumber again & was told that the system was probably blocked with soot.

So I dismantled the fire putting the bits in the garden & getting Herself to wet it down carefully with the hose. I meanwhile started inserting various blunt objects up the hole in the firebox where the smoke goes out. It didnt do any good. neither did hitting it with a big hammer. It was then that I had my big brainwave. maybe if I inserted the chimney brush into the chimney again & made vigorous up, down & swirling motions, the blockage might be dislodged. It wasn't. The bloody rods & brush didn't come out either. The system is held together by little spring loaded buttons that very cleverly pop out into holes drilled just for that very purpose. This works fine when hole & button are properly lined up. Sadly, this wasn't the case with one joint. You know the one I mean. Thats right, the one that's tantalisingly 6 inches out of reach of a questing hand thrust as far down the chimney as possible.

I tried carefully putting the other bit of rod down over it. I could get it on, but couldn't get it over the button. I tried using Herself's picky uppy thing that she uses to get stuff off the floor. It didn't work either. We wont mention the bad language. It may have been sufficient to raise the dead, but it certainly didn't budge the chimney brush. It did come out in the end. It involved the use of a torch, a length of wire with a hook in one end & the nice young man thats building his own home on the section next door. It really is lovely to watch. he is doing the work himself, living at present in rented accomodation just up the road. Every time something of importance happens on site, his wife walks down with their little girl in a push chair & they sit in the side door of his van & dream their dreams.

They have got their building permit at last, so its all starting to happen for them. The pilings went in this week. Our properties are on a river flat, so they have to go quite deep. Its a fascinating process to watch. A big digger comes on site, swaps the bucket for a purpose built clamp, picks up these 10" or so in diameter poles about 20 ft long & quite literally pushes them into the ground.

I also finished cleaning the alloy rims on Sherman. That has been a mission. They were painted silver, then lacquered. Even paint stripper wouldn't look at it. A rotary wire brush in the electric drill did the job though.

Next Tuesday I have to take Herself over to Waikato Hospital. She is finally getting her dangly bit of tube replaced with something called a Nikki Button. This will leave her with a more or less flush fitting that looks a lot like the air valve on an old Li Lo inflatable airbed. Notice that I am staying WAY WAY away from any other comparisons. This will make life a lot easier for her as its a lot more discrete.

What else ? Oh yeah ! last night I booked us tickets to go see la Cirque Du Soleil. Herself has wanted to go for some time now & mentioned it when she saw the ad on TV. It's a strange feeling to be able to book for something like that , with the only consideration being what night you can get the seats you want & what night of the week you want to go on. We have seats on a Tuesday night & will be six rows from the front. We are both looking forward to it