If you were to describe the things on your to-do-urgently list as alligators, up to what corporeal level would you describe your level of immersion in them?My arse
What is it that numerically exceeds your ability to shake a hairy stick at?
Stuff
(What is a hairy stick anyway? Crikey)
The gear hub on my new bicycle got stuck in top gear the other day. Took the wheel off, gave it a Serious Looking At, debated whether to start dismantling it, decided that now is not the time to start learning about the inner workings of the Shimano Nexus 7 gear cluster, wondered if this was a bit of a cop-out, and finally mustered quantities of cardboard and parcel tape, and packaged it up and sent it off to York, whence it came originally, as it is still covered by the warranty.
Fortunately I still have the new old bike, which came off Freecycle and which I like very much, although it still has lots of tweaking to do on it. Look, here it is. It's old and Dutch.
And then there's the flies.
I found that I'd got maggots in the compost bin last week, when I noticed them wiggling furiously in every direction away from the bin on the kitchen floor. I swept them up, but suspected that some had already got under places that I couldn't get to. So I waited.
Two days ago there were loads of emerald green flies in the kitchen. I hunted them down with a rolled-up newspaper and splatted them.
Same story yesterday too.
Hopefully they'll stop hatching out soon, and then I can wash the windows. Like, yeurk.
My stomach turns over everytime something goes wrong with bikes or cars. It started with my dad who always blamed my bad riding/driving for anything going wrong. Rob uses his bike to go to work so life gets complicated and expensive when things go wrong with his. He also carries a bike pump with him even though he has magic tyres.
ReplyDeleteAs for the flies... in the early 60s our village was invaded by flies from a rubbish tip. The tip was filled in and is now a vantage point where you can see for miles and rare orchids are growing. Perhaps you'll find rare orchids growing in your kitchen next spring!
I visited a restaurant in the north of England years ago. After a few drinks the owner took us out to the back - it was crawling with maggots.
Maggots are about the most disgusting of God's Creatures, but without them, there would be no birds singing in the trees.. or something like that.
ReplyDeleteUrgh.. Well, they don't smell. I had a mouse in my house a few years ago, and it was a stinky little bugger.. Took me a week to catch it!
These days I am usually fairly cool when something goes wrong with a bike, though I can worry obsessively about unusual noises in the car. Fortunately, my father was very good at sorting things out without blaming me for them.... much...
ReplyDelete...magic tyres? Those puncture resistant ones? Sometimes I seem to have a run of punctures. Maybe I should change the tyres.
Seeing what goes on in kitchens (or more particularly ships' galleys) has made me fairly cautious about eating out at all.
My head tells me that maggots are clean, but I still feel a revulsion at the sight, along with a sense of wonder that they can metamorphose into such beautiful (if annoying) insects- I put some of the pupae into a jam jar to watch them hatch out; you get a lot of fly for a small pupa. It reminds me of my feelings of mortality; I used to dwell on death and decomposition when I was young. When I was chatting to the chap on the train last week, he said that a friend ran a Goth funeral service. "I presume that Goths prefer burial to cremation, for that decomposing aspect," I said. The maggots reminded me more immediately of where we're heading. O dear.
Mice? Can't stand sharing a space with them. A place I was staying at in Devon got invaded by rats one autumn, when I'd gone away for a few days, and I had to chase them out with a stick when I got back. It was horrible.
The pucture resistant ones are okay if you don't get a big puncture.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about flies being 'beautiful', but I think I prefer butterflies