Boys Toys

I was in my garage the other day. It’s quite a big garage, situated underneath the kitchen and it’s never had a car in it and it’s unlikely to ever do so. Don’t know why we made it a garage as the drive is a bit steep and if we used the garage to house the cars their clutches would undoubtedly burn out within weeks. But all new houses have integral garages so we got one. I can’t even remember asking for one but I got it anyway. Of course, as soon as we moved into the house, even before the builders had vacated the premises, I was down there fixing up shelves, making a work bench, rigging up extension sockets for my electric bench grinder which I use about once a year and putting hooks on the wall so all my tools could be kept off the floor. It’s a bugger when you’re walking through the garage at night in the pitch black and you fall over the car vacuum cleaner or the aluminium step ladders – so everything which can be hung up is hung up.

By now you should be forming the impression that my garage is full of every conceivable man gadget. It is. I’ve got grinders and shavers, lamps and amp testers, plungers and pluggers. I’ve got boxes of nuts, bolts, screws, springs and washers. I’ve got every type of glue known to man as well as every type of oil. It’s a veritable treasure trove of things – man things. And the best ones were bought for me by my darling wife (there – I’ve said something nice about her!).

It started quite a few years ago on my 50^th birthday which was not that long after I’d moved over. I’d had a big party up in the mountains and the next day we all decamped back to our house to continue the festivities (the hotel had run out of booze so we had to move somewhere). During the afternoon J called us all out to the front drive to present what was quite obviously my birthday gift. It was just sitting there, all wrapped up in gold shiny paper. How she’d managed to get so much wrapping paper and wrap it up with a big ribbon so that you couldn’t even see the wheels was quite a feat. It was quite obvious what it was. The shape was unmistakeable and as soon as I started ripping the paper off and I saw the beautiful orange paintwork, I was nearly overcome. The crowd of friends broke into spontaneous applause and I just looked at my ……………. electric cement mixer. I’d obviously mentioned, probably in a drunken moment, that I’d quite like one – so I got one!

A couple of years later, and I forget if this one was for a birthday or a Xmas, I got a bush-cutter, or debrousiage as they call them out here. It’s like a huge strimmer only it’s so big and heavy that you need to lower it onto you with a block and tackle and hope that it clicks into the full body harness you have to wear to use it. Come to think of it, I’d probably been complaining of a bad back and hay fever so what better gift for the man who has everything, than a 200lb bush-cutter which kicks up so much grass that I look like Edward Scissorhands when he’s trimming the bushes?

And then there was the time that I mentioned J’s car was looking a trifle dirty. In fact it was so dirty, so often that I was tempted to get the official colour changed to ‘metallic mud’, but again, it must’ve been near Xmas cause there, under the tree, in fact, propping up the tree was my pressie. It was a Karcher – one of those yellow pressure hoses which most people buy to clean their cars! You can’t say she’s not imaginative.

And that was followed by a large janitor’s brush because I’d stupidly mentioned that cleaning the terraces with the normal, small brooms took too long. It was difficult for her to disguise that one with gift wrapping paper!

So – maybe you’ve all noticed that there’s a trend here. If I mention it, and it cleans, sweeps, sucks or cuts, and it’s near Xmas or February, then there ‘s a good chance I’ll get it. Strangely, the Porsche Boxter I mention every year never arrives, but then if it did, I wouldn’t be able to get it in the garage!