mca & nics ‘a series of unfortunate events’
Wednesday...
the knock at the door turned out to be Luis, so the coffee went on and the conversation turned to
his favourite subject of abseiling off stuff-”what you up to Friday” he asked- “friends in St Mellion
and lots of climbing” I replied- “ah-ok..you know the big crane near my house..it comes down at the weekend so...I’m doing it on Friday”-thats when the photos with hand-scrawled notes all over them
came out- very impressive- he had the rope length, wind direction and black special ops kit at
the ready and had worked out that 03-30am was the ‘stealth attack zone’ as nobody in their right
mind would be up at that hour*- he needed a ground man to attach the 200m rope to the fishing line
he would be lowering so he could pull up enough line to get down- he estimated the boom height
to be too high for a 50m rope, looking at it I estimated it to be a fair bit higher than his estimate-
I declined the position as ground man as I had an excuse “you need a total lunatic to get involved
with that activity” I said.....I gave him Fab’s number-
Thursday, 17 September 2009
andy on the up-
‘mushroom wall’ VS 4c sheepstor
Friday
unfortunate event- mca leaving his wallet
in morrisons’ carpark- hugely mad dash
back from yelverton to tavvy...luckily a
very nice lady had handed it in...ah now,
the future of mankind looks good today,
celebration time..we bought 50 brownies
and beer-
even better, sheepstor is deserted and the
sun is out...start climbing but the brownies
stayed in the car.....as did the beer
nic resting at the top
andy on ‘crack and chimney’ S
well that took care of friday....
a lot of routes ticked off and it
was time to transport our
shipment of brownies to lou and
steve’s place in st.mellion which
happens to be exactly forty
paces from t’pub-
great evening eating food off
the bar b, discussing the merits
of ‘pollytunnels’, waiting for the beer to go blue and playing dog
five a side forty paces down the
lane-
fortunate event- lou performing
for us after a hefty amount of
alcoholic bevvy consumption-
unfortunate event- temporary
blindness and loss of speech
after sampling steve’s mild chilli
sauce....wonder how luis is
getting on with his ‘project’
Saturday
ok..all agreed then, great mis tor once steve had
taken his new kayak up the tamar for an epic trip
before lunch- we went on to sort out the routes-
fortunate event- setting up a top rope for two
small girls so they could scare the living daylights
out of their parents (well done on ‘mistory’ ladies)
most unfortunate event- air ambulance landing on
the road at four winds carpark for a really nasty
crash, our thoughts go out to you
wasp brings on another unexpected unfortunate event- about my third attempt at ‘misanthrope’
saw me committing to the slopers just below the spike near the top with a higher than usual
foot jam to the left- all felt good so 1-2-3-up when all of a sudden “GO AWAY...GETTOFF....NO
GO AWAY....STOP STOP...NOOOOO”.....not surpisingly, I came unglued and fell off- as I dangled
four inches above the grass and dripping with blood from the skin that had made contact with
most of the crystals on the way down, nic apologised...”wasp!....bloody big one!”- time to go
friday, several weeks later
I pressed the ‘casa villazon’ doorbell- “hi luis, how’s things” I said “erm well, you know..cool”
came the reply “how did the crane thingy go” I said “yeah, good....I got to the platform....the
computer readout put the boom hieght at.....cough...97 metres so I was gonna be in trouble at
the base so I didn’t really fancy the next bit as it was REALLY exposed and I was looking for
an easy option out and then...........................................................................the police turned up!”
(*turns out that somebody who was in their right mind was indeed up at that hour!)
after the police had shouted up into the darkness several times and shone their maglights
in the wrong direction, luis explained that all he had to do was hide behind the cab untill the
rozzers decided to go back to the station, they, on the other had decided to play the waiting
game and eventually luis decided it would be best to downclimb and come clean, the waiting
turned out to be for backup in the form of the local fire and rescue who turned up en-mass
just as luis got to about 10 metres from a terra firma-
in their infinite wisdom the police had decided that luis was one of two things...a drunken oaf
or a thief...they gave him the up down look as he stood there dressed in black and kitted
out with ropes, slings and tons of metalwork looking like an extra from mission impossible
“thief” they both agreed and then proceeded to frisk him under the suspicion of possible
crane theft- eventually luis explained all and showed them the detailed plans and pictures
telling them that “it really had to be done as the crane will be gone by sunday”
“you should have asked” said the police “we may have said it was ok”.......”you know what”
I said to luis “I bloody well doubt that.....unfortunately!”
‘miserly’ HVS 5a
‘misanthrope HVS 5c
x marks the downward exit point
x
along from ‘mishap’