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26/04/2007

I've been back in New Zealand/Aotearoa since a bit before Xmas and have enjoyed getting reacquainted with my homeland after about seven years abroad. Over the last couple of months I have had precious few opportunities to get online and update the site as I have been occupied in the agricultural sector, picking Dave's apples. Life on the orchard is a bit slow at times though it can have it's moments.....

The Saga of Toerag and Shit-for-Brains

Toerag and Shit-for-Brains showed up on the orchard looking for work and hung around like a bad smell. In the time they graced our presense They managed to piss just about everyone off before finally pissing off themselves. Neither of them did a lot of work. Toerag spent more time hooning around the orchard in his car than picking apples. With random precision he managed to work his way up the nose of pretty much everyone in the place, while Shit-for-Brains was just a general dickhead. The poor old Pom is sitting in his car eating his sammies one day as Toerag screams past showering him with gravel. The Pom doesn't rile easily, it has to be said, but on this occasion he was incensed. One day I heard the Dickheads consortium conspiring to fill up Brains's bin with green apples and then apply a nice red veneer of red apples from the tops to make it look good. Little did they know that the boss reaches right down into them bins to check out the state of his apples. It's quality control at least a foot deep and the boss is up and down all over the place. He doesn't like bruising. One day he puts a rocket up Toerag for chucking apples, Toerag does it again immediately of course. The boss is on his case about his "smart attitude".

Toerag says "I can't be f#%ked any more," and walks off. Brains says he's going too and they leave hand in hand, off into the sunset in a cloud of dust and gravel. The boss returns to the yard singing "The wankers are gone, the wankers are gone."

But the wankers weren't gone. A week later they came back and did the place over.

Anatomy of a Burglary

There are two blocks. In our block reside a young guy from the Check Republic, four Chileans and myself. Toerag had stayed in the same block while Brains occupied a caravan. In the other block where the toilets are is a long time orchard resident, on the dole, and his girlfriend with a couple in a camper van nearby.

Saturday night Check Boy and the Chileans head into the city for a party, I decline the invitation to go with them. Around 8:30 I head out to find a paper but the local dairy is closed so I head on into Richmond where I buy a paper and an ice cream. As I sat in the car eating the ice cream I toss up whether or not to invite the POm out for a drink and catch some Super 14 rugby on the telly, but decide against it and head straight back out to the orchard. The right move as it turns out. I would have been gone for 1/2 hour at most. I come back in to find my room ransacked, travel bag gone, along with computer, iPod and other stuff. There is a pile of clothes sleeping bags and sundry items at the door of the Chilean's dorm, the lock has been forced. I go to the other block, hear anything? No. Campervaners? No. Shit! I try to find the boss, no reply, he's watching the rugby, call the cops. The guys from the other block meanwhile have found some bags that were dropped around the back in the cabbage patch. It looks like the burglar(s) left in a hurry and couldn't quite get away with all of it. There is a trail of woman's clothing along a treeline heading toward the road. (I put that down to Toerag, sick little pervert!) My travel case is there and computer inside (iPod too!) this is where being a bit of an old soak has worked in my favour as the half a slab of beer and three bottles of wine they took from my room cleary weighed the case down to the point where they couldn't carry it off. An attempt had been made to open the case during the flight, but abandonned. This was my lucky day, Check boy lost his laptop and the Chileans lost some expensive clothing. I got pretty much everything back apart from a small quantity of the unmentionable.

So how do we know it was them?

The burglars knew the layout of the orchard, they knew what people had and they knew when everyone in our block was gone. Check boy received a text message from Brains the day of the burglary to ask if he was still living on the orchard. He responded "yes" and got no reply. On-the-dole's mother-in-law says she saw Toerag's Toyota Corolla parked in an odd place nearby the orchard, shortly before the burglary. Toerag had a couple of MP3 players on hime when he arrived, didn't know how to charge them, most probably ripped off from the last orchard he was at.

The Aftermath

The cops came out again the next day to check my booze for prints but it seemed that they were wearing gloves. We are pretty sure we know who it was and the cops assured us that both creeps had criminal records as long as your arm but unless they are caught with the items it's pretty hard to make anything stick. What made it all that more insidious was the way Toerag had struck up a friendship with Check boy and then quite happily ripped him off. Toerag had mentioned having to face up to court on Monday in Christchurch so our guess is they have staked the place out, watched until everyone in our block went out and then hit the place before getting the hell out of Dodge, a carload of beer for the trip to Christchurch.

So if you see a Silver Toyota Corolla parked by the side of the road do everyone a favour and let the air out of the tyres or something.

O.K.so it's not the greatest anecdote of all time but like I said, life is pretty slow on the orchard. We're getting laid off shortly so I'm set to wander kiwiland seeking new purpose and meaning. If ytou are still wondering who the fuck I am, the dirty details are right here: bio Speaking of my homelands I have just registered the domain http://www.oldnewzealand.info which I hope to develop into a portal for NZ history resources. Watch this space.....