Henrik tells it: “There was two of us on this servicing job. The clams were open in the height of the British summer, and we had been working topless in the nacelle all morning. I had been working with this guy from Wales, Ben, for about 2 months and he said he wanted to show me something. Coming from a sweaty shirtless man, this offer seemed strange. Now we had gotten to know each other well but I could tell he was sounding me out for something with hypotheticals and risky anecdotes.
At lunch time, he pulled out two hammocks from a bag and started hanging them up between the roof shells. It turns out he had done it before and was just making sure that I wasn’t the type of guy to report him. I carefully climbed in, just rocking in the breeze 50 m up in the air and just read my book whilst I ate my sandwich. Ben fell asleep, and it was hot as balls, so I took my trousers off. The egg mayo sandwich was working its way through and I started to fart. One was so loud I started to laugh, and it woke him up.
“Fuck sake Henrik, you twat, that’s disgustin’.”
“You’re loss if you don’t find farts funny. If you don’t laugh at farts, you still fart the same amount but you’re not laughing.”
“Sglyfath”, Ben uttered in Welsh.
He grabbed my clothes from the top of the gearbox and launched them off the top of the turbine. I watched them drift out into the fields as they fell to the ground. I took his shirt and boots and launched them over the side too. We just looked at each other and laughed. At this point I’m just stood there in my pants and I couldn’t be arsed to climb back down so I just put my boots back on and went back to work.
We finished a few hours later and climbed down-tower. So, I’m in my pants, harness, helmet and work boots looking like a Village People themed stripper. Ben has no t-shirt on either. As we are restarting the turbine suddenly this sheep dog turns up, with a t-shirt in its mouth.
“Hey, give that ‘ere! Drop it.” Ben tried to wrestle it from him.
Someone whistled the dog off and a farmer appeared between us and the van. There’s nowhere to hide.
“Hot today isn’t it?” the farmer offered.
“This yours?” The farmer bent down to retrieve the t-shirt from his dog.
“Yes, the breeze must have caught it.” Ben snatched it.
The farmer raised his eyebrows as Ben pulled the t-shirt over his head but it was mine and it was about two sizes too small.
“And these?” he held the boots aloft. Ben looked sheepishly down at his bare feet.
I stood next to the farmer, still in my pants, hands on hips to bolster his inquiry.
“Benjamin, how careless of you!” Working without any safety gear on!”
The farmer reeled in retreat and shook his head as he left us.
If you like this story, you might enjoy where the wind takes you a book of short stories from wind turbines technicians
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