It’s been a pretty quiet week at Le Brin apart from Tuesday when I was out and about in Grasse trying to get the State to recognize that I exist and that I need a French driving licence (I don’t really but it’d be nice to have one if I’m ever stopped in the UK) and that I also need to get my latest scooter registered.
Of course there is frantic activity each morning. I am up every day at 6.30am to cook my darling children’s breakfast (pancakes, spam fritters, cheese on toast have been some of the highlights this week) and run the poor little souls down to the bus stop, whilst J just turns her electric blanket up a couple of notches and gives me her order for breakfast. Such is life as a married slave!
Wednesday and Thursday were so wet that there wasn’t much we could do. I even offered to take J for lunch on Thursday to relieve the cabin fever but amazingly she refused and instead started cooking a meat suet pudding. An hour later she was begging me to take her and the kids out for pizza as she’d discovered it takes around 2 hours to steam!
But the highlight of the week, and this is pretty nerdy I admit, was when I ventured into the local DIY shop to get a latch for the guest bathroom door. Unfortunately, a friend had got locked in last week and she’d been shouting for a while before anyone had heard her cries for help. All pretty embarrassing, so I’d resolved to get a new latch this week. Having picked it off the shelf, I went to the check-out with gnashed teeth as I knew it was going to cost £10 whilst I could have ordered one in the UK for less than £1 !!! A complete rip off!
But, as I headed for the check-out I stumbled upon a range of power tools which caught my attention because right there in the middle of the display was a chainsaw chain sharpener.
Now I’ve been looking for one of these for years. I’ve tried special rounded files to hand sharpen the teeth. I’ve even tried a Heath-Robinson contraption which looks like something you’d use to study the stars but once I’d worked out that neither of these devices worked, I’d started taking my blunt chains down to a local gardening shop where he’d sharpen each one for €6. The problem was that despite me telling him when I’d return for my chains, he’d never do them in time and I’d be left wandering around his shop whilst he hunted for and then sharpened my chains. The usual French service!
Anyway, I couldn’t wait to get my new toy home and within 20 minutes I was grinding my chains to razor sharpness. By the time I’d finished all four chains, I’d actually paid for the grinder – all €24 of it. And I won’t have to spend an hour every couple of months wandering around the garden shop looking for my chains that he’s lost!
The problem is that whenever I mention my chainsaw, J goes a whiter shade of pale, thinking back to the story a couple of years ago where an English guy who was pruning his trees, fell off of his ladder (which his wife was holding) and unfortunately cut her head off in the process.
http://www.poe-news.com/stories.php?poeurlid=47847&rejected=T
The sharper the blade, the neater the cut!!!!
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