Sunday 9 January 2011

Gate

One autumn the wind blew so hard that it pushed the garden gate, which opens in to the back lane, over its rebate, sticking it fast. We were trapped.

Aieee! Trapped
!

I checked the chocolate biscuit supply and reckoned that so long as you didn't mind a walk, we could manage with just the front door and go along the main road.

The back gate was dodgy all winter, a constant menace as to whether, having let us out, it would let us back in.


Eventually, the weather turned and it was possible to take the gate off and repair it. While Mr Raft sawed and sanded and chamfered and drilled and glued and screwed, I made the tea.

Standing with a mug of tea and admiring his exemplary handiwork, I looked at the other end of the garden where the bushes grow.


That gate, the other gate, the secret gate, was working the whole time.

13 comments:

Richard said...

I'm hearing Alan Bennett as the earnest vicar: "And so there is a message for all of us here, I think ... do we accept the imprisonment of the jammed gate, or do we seek that which will fulfil our needs in the unfamiliar shrubberies?"

JuliaM said...

Blimey! And I was proud I spent the morning cleaning out one of the kitchen cupboards!

Carpentry would be out of the question. Even watching it... :)

Jim Baxter said...

Perhaps your other gate is alarmed and you shut it, as gates should always be shut, from your mind, not wishing the alarm to spread to you. Alarm always spreads, usually in the company of despondency.

Many exits in my place of work are constantly alarmed. It is my belief that they are Daily Mail readers.

Woman on a Raft said...

How astute of you, Richard, to hear the Yorkshire in it. That is indeed the message which I only wish I had thought of.

Like you, JuliaM, I have decided to clean out a cupboard or two. Unlike you I suspect, I now have an untidy pile of stuff obstructing the access.

Woman on a Raft said...

Hello Jim and Happy New Year to you.

Nice blog; I have put you on the blogroll and thanks for the link.

Electro-Kevin said...

Good job. I hope you replaced the missing screw on that handle.

Bill Quango MP said...

I bought a big stack of plastic crates to clean out two double cupboards worth of junk so the kids could finally put their toys away.

The cupboards were fitted in the playroom for the children but are mainly full of work samples, tools, old tins of paint, boxes of wires and cables from equipment that we probably no longer have and old appliances that work just fine, but have been replaced by shinier examples.


I cleared 1/4 of the cupboard before the hoarder brain kicked in.

Those scart leads must belong to something?{They don't.}
And if I throw out that three year old match-pot, how will I know the exact colour if I need to repaint the wall? {I won't ever do that.}
This kettle must be useful to somebody. Maybe in an emergency? {It isn't. Kettles cost about £6 at Asda}
These samples could go on Ebay..
{Could, but won't. Who wants to list hundreds of individual items}

Eventually took the floor cleaning machine out, which shouldn't be in those cupboards taking up all the space, before walking round the house, unable to find anywhere else that it might fit, and then remembering that's why it was put in there in the first place.

Gave up. Job 1/4 accomplished, which is a new success record with those 'bits & bobs' cupboards.

Richard said...

This is so close to my own experience, it's creepy. I feel as if I have a stalker.

Mr Raft said...

Electro-Kevin

I certainly did, never fear.

Woman on a Raft said...

Part of your cupboard problem Mr Q, is related to the EU. Really. A couple of years ago unwanted small items could go to Oxfam, where I'd buy them and clutter up the Raft.

I got a little electric broom and a slo-cooker and most of my hairdryers and table-lamps that way and used them until they packed up, then threw them away with a good conscience having squeezed all the value I could out of them.

Now, what with all the PAC testing and regulations, few if any, stores will do it. If governments were serious about recycling, this is the first silliness they'd tackle.

I know of one person, though, the Blue Kraken, who makes new and beautiful items out of computer disassembly.

She is putting herself through college partly on the proceeds of the jewellery business.

Dick the Prick said...

This guy's flogging old lightbulbs

(Reuters) - A German entrepreneur is bypassing a European Union ban on light bulbs of more than 60 watts by marketing his own brand as mini heaters.


http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69E3FS20101015

Woman on a Raft said...

The wind enjoys practical jokes, Richard. Its favourite is to wait until my uncle has been sent out by Aunty Raft - who thinks trees are untidy - to sweep the leaves in to a pile. Pretty soon he's got them cornered by the compost bin, then as he stoops to lift up the lid, it blows like mad and scatters them back down the garden.

JuliaM said...

That computer jewellery is amazing!