A Busy Sort of Day…
Normally my days are quiet and very routine. Up at 7.30, junk about 100 spams; porridge and coffee; up the hill to wake Dad and get him breakfast and pills; back home and start work on The Book. At lunchtime a bowl of soup and a couple of last year's scrawny apples, then up the hill to get Dad his lunch and pills; back to the computer; tea time, up the hill again; eat; evenings crashed out: rarely anything on the telly, so it's reading or music.
Anne's day is similar except she's looking after her Mum.
But yesterday was different…
Some months ago we passed on our lovely old grey Fergie tractor to a friend who is going to renovate it and use it. Excellent. It was just slowly rotting in the open shed and there was no way I was ever going to do anything about it.
Doug turned up with his two neighbours, Orfyl and Arwel and kicked a few tyres as per normal. 'No way we'll get a trailer down here. My wellies are past the ankles already. Look… We'd be stuck. Sure to.'
So Ken next door came to the rescue with his big Zetor. I sat on the Fergie and steered while Ken hauled and slithered Fergie out into the yard. Even the Zetor got jammed in the mud once, but with a bit of intelligence (lengthening the towing chain by a couple of feet; think about it…) we got moving again. The tyres were virtually flat but Ken inflated them from the Zetor's built-in pump. Amazingly, they stayed up.
Doug and co turned up again a week later with a big posh flat-bed trailer with its own little winch and Fergie went off to her new home. I almost wiped a manly tear away. People get very fond of Fergies.
Doug sent snaps of the restoration process. It was just a little like watching an operation on your child. Pipes and tubes; things exposed that should never be; surfaces and areas that were clearly not healthy; tales of needing ever bigger hammers to free up the pistons; rumours even of welding pneumatic valves on, to force pistons free, a little like an air bomb (mercifully that idea was scrapped, as would Fergie undoubtedly have been if they'd gone ahead with it).
One or two bits of giblet in the gearbox looked over-tired, so Doug called me back to see if they could come over and collect the other Fergie we had bought in for spares some twenty years ago. It had always been called Scrapper, and had laid in the same spot, facing Fergie in her shed, festooned in huge swags and swathes of brambles for a fifth of a century.
Again, Ken came round with the Zetor to haul Scrapper through the mud. This time it wasn't so easy, as both rear wheels were locked and one tyre was a tattered rag. Still on, but cracked and utterly flat. This was to be a problem later. And, of course, to add to the fun, Scrapper was facing the wrong way and would need to be hauled backwards.
Ken hooked his chain up and heaved. Nothing happened, apart from the Zetor moving slowly an inch or two sideways through the morass. This was partly because Scrapper was on a bit of a slope. Ken re-manoeuvred his dinosaur and hooked up again. This time Scrapper moved a couple of inches, but those wheels would not turn. I was perched on the back, standing on very flimsy rusty footplates, hanging desperately onto the steering wheel. I should point out that Scrapper lacked a seat, so I felt a little like Charlton Heston in Ben Hur, except that I didn't dare take one hand off the wheel to grab the whip. Grunging noises; 'tunk' noises as the tow chain strained; gulping noises as I tried not to think of what might happen if the chain broke; … and inch by inch Scrapper moved. It took a quarter of an hour to haul it twenty yards to the point near the end of the track, where we were to leave it for Orfyl to back up to it with the big trailer. En route, Scrapper had collected behind its back 'wheels' a thick wodge of brambles, prunings, reeds, mud, and a small willow tree which had foolishly taken root in the boggy bits.
Two weeks later (ie, yesterday) Doug and co returned, along with Raymond, Doug's brother. A very smart move, as it turned out.
We'd fixed the date a week previously. Would you believe it, the day before Doug and co were due to come, we got a phone call from Heinz (yes, he's from Lancashire) and Vincenza his wife (Staffordshire, I think) to ask if they could come round in the morning to finish felling and logging a couple of trees they'd made a start on six days ago.
Well.. should they come or not? Our lane is narrow, twisting, and difficult. We wouldn't want anyone to be faced with the prospect of having to reverse up it, particularly with a trailer. On the other hand, Heinz might not be able to come on any other day for a month and the sap was beginning to rise already. It's hard work sawing a sappy tree, and, once felled, it's wringing wet and takes four times longer to dry out. 'OK Heinz… we'd love to see you.'
The woodfolk arrived at about ten, and set to work. We'd warned them not to touch the three 8" sycamores in the drive until the tractor gang had arrived and left again. That still left plenty to do for four of us. Heinz knocked 'em down, the women hauled the brash to a bonfire site, and I hand-sawed the pole-sized pieces that are a pain for the chainsaw.
At 11 the tractor team arrived. There were four of them which seemed like overkill. One to turn the dinky little winch and three to stand by and applaud, surely?
Not a bit of it. It took four of us, pushing against various points of the carcase to move Scrapper a single millimetre, and that was after Doug had hacked away all the trash from behind the wheels. The hand winch just wasn't up to hauling a dead weight through mud. And things weren't helped by that flat tyre that acted like a skid mat, absorbing whatever forward energy was generated and using it instead to slew the tractor gently sideways. 'Levers, boys! Chas? What've you got?'
Orfyl followed me to the woodshed and we hauled out a couple of handy baulks, about four inches square and six feet long (ex-floor joists, rescued from a demolition site twenty-odd years ago. I knew they'd come in handy one day, according to Rule One of the Smallholder's Handbook: 'Never throw anything away. Never… ')
Yes.. they helped. We moved Scrapper all of an inch and a half, but it was still slewing off beam. 'More levers!'
We found an old iron pipe, 2" by about 7', part of an old milking parlour. Arwel stuck it under the back axle. 'Good, boys.'
We fixed Doug up with an old railway sleeper (farms are treasure troves of social history…) and we tried again. 'Heave!'
Yes! Another inch gained. 'Heave!' four men straining moved the brute a further magnificent inch. 'OK. Rest…'
It took the best part of an hour to move Scrapper the necessary couple of feet onto the trailer. After every inch gained, Raymond twizzled the little winch to take up the pathetic amount of slack. More than once he had to flick the release thingy so Orfyl could adjust the level of the flatbed. It was only when you heard the safety lever snap off that you realised what a risky job Raymond had. A titchy little cable, under great stress…. We joshed him boyishly about whose job it would be to pick his head out of the shrubbery should the wire snap. Oh, what fun…
Yes, eventually Scrapper was hauled safely aboard. I would never have believed it could have taken so long. But we'd enjoyed it. We'd faced a silly problem and had beaten it through intelligence, strength, and perseverance. And we'd worked well as a scratch team. No bullying; no bossiness; no back-sliding. Great stuff. Everyone was listened to. Every idea tried. Perfect.
I left them to the final job of tying Scrapper to the deck for his journey to Doug's shed.
The woodworkers were in the kitchen, clearly glad they weren't part of the tractor circus and only had the mundane jobs of climbing trees with a chainsaw to deal with.
A quick cup of tea, and I'm off up the drive to get Dad's lunch. Orfyl was ever so gradually hauling the Land Rover and trailer round the 90 degree angle from the track and onto the drive. He had about three inches total clearance to juggle with. 'Whoa!! Back! You're going in the ditch!' Try again…' Whoa! Stop!! The trailer's climbing the bank… the Scrapper's going to slide….'
I left them to it.
Ten yards up the lane I met a new Vauxhall coming down with a beautifully coiffed young woman in it. 'Hello?' 'Oh.. am I in the right place? I've come to do Mrs Harrison's hair…'
Oh yes, Anne had told me about her Mum's hair appointment.
'Yes. Right place, but er….' And I pointed behind me to the Land Rover rig which had finally got itself straightened out and was slowly hauling towards us. 'Oh…' said the lady.
'Well, one of you is going to have to reverse,' I thought. 'And it ain't going to be Orfyl and his whopping great trailer.'
The hairdresser tried valiantly, but almost went into both ditches within twenty seconds. The next time she stalled. Clearly, she was about to panic. I did my best and calmly waved her back, but we both knew…
'OK, I'll have a bash.' Mucky wellies onto pristine car mat. Can't be helped. Easy to start… now where's reverse? Ah.. it's written on the gear knob.. right…. Blimey.. what a flippin gearbox. I'm used to my Kangoo box which is light and very positive; this thing was like a jam jar full of knuckles…. Push…pull… what gear's that? No idea. Lift and pull back for reverse.. Wow! Got it! And after only one embarrassing diversion, I wound the ten yards back up the pitted windy drive to Dad's entrance where I could pull out of the way.
The convoy passed, waving and tooting, as convoys do. Orfyl couldn't resist pointing out to the hairdresser that older drivers were better. He meant 'men'. She knew.
There we are then. All we need now is for me to reverse onto the track and let the hairdresser continue down into our yard on her mission of mercy. But could I find that blasted reverse gear again? I tried six times. Lift, pull back; pull back, lift. Lift harder and pull back…. Not a chance.
In the end the lady got back in, fluttering about whether she'd broken her nice new car (I don't think reverse had ever been used before, frankly). And lo… in first time and away…..
Today has been very quiet.
Anne's day is similar except she's looking after her Mum.
But yesterday was different…
Some months ago we passed on our lovely old grey Fergie tractor to a friend who is going to renovate it and use it. Excellent. It was just slowly rotting in the open shed and there was no way I was ever going to do anything about it.
Doug turned up with his two neighbours, Orfyl and Arwel and kicked a few tyres as per normal. 'No way we'll get a trailer down here. My wellies are past the ankles already. Look… We'd be stuck. Sure to.'
So Ken next door came to the rescue with his big Zetor. I sat on the Fergie and steered while Ken hauled and slithered Fergie out into the yard. Even the Zetor got jammed in the mud once, but with a bit of intelligence (lengthening the towing chain by a couple of feet; think about it…) we got moving again. The tyres were virtually flat but Ken inflated them from the Zetor's built-in pump. Amazingly, they stayed up.
Doug and co turned up again a week later with a big posh flat-bed trailer with its own little winch and Fergie went off to her new home. I almost wiped a manly tear away. People get very fond of Fergies.
Doug sent snaps of the restoration process. It was just a little like watching an operation on your child. Pipes and tubes; things exposed that should never be; surfaces and areas that were clearly not healthy; tales of needing ever bigger hammers to free up the pistons; rumours even of welding pneumatic valves on, to force pistons free, a little like an air bomb (mercifully that idea was scrapped, as would Fergie undoubtedly have been if they'd gone ahead with it).
One or two bits of giblet in the gearbox looked over-tired, so Doug called me back to see if they could come over and collect the other Fergie we had bought in for spares some twenty years ago. It had always been called Scrapper, and had laid in the same spot, facing Fergie in her shed, festooned in huge swags and swathes of brambles for a fifth of a century.
Again, Ken came round with the Zetor to haul Scrapper through the mud. This time it wasn't so easy, as both rear wheels were locked and one tyre was a tattered rag. Still on, but cracked and utterly flat. This was to be a problem later. And, of course, to add to the fun, Scrapper was facing the wrong way and would need to be hauled backwards.
Ken hooked his chain up and heaved. Nothing happened, apart from the Zetor moving slowly an inch or two sideways through the morass. This was partly because Scrapper was on a bit of a slope. Ken re-manoeuvred his dinosaur and hooked up again. This time Scrapper moved a couple of inches, but those wheels would not turn. I was perched on the back, standing on very flimsy rusty footplates, hanging desperately onto the steering wheel. I should point out that Scrapper lacked a seat, so I felt a little like Charlton Heston in Ben Hur, except that I didn't dare take one hand off the wheel to grab the whip. Grunging noises; 'tunk' noises as the tow chain strained; gulping noises as I tried not to think of what might happen if the chain broke; … and inch by inch Scrapper moved. It took a quarter of an hour to haul it twenty yards to the point near the end of the track, where we were to leave it for Orfyl to back up to it with the big trailer. En route, Scrapper had collected behind its back 'wheels' a thick wodge of brambles, prunings, reeds, mud, and a small willow tree which had foolishly taken root in the boggy bits.
Two weeks later (ie, yesterday) Doug and co returned, along with Raymond, Doug's brother. A very smart move, as it turned out.
We'd fixed the date a week previously. Would you believe it, the day before Doug and co were due to come, we got a phone call from Heinz (yes, he's from Lancashire) and Vincenza his wife (Staffordshire, I think) to ask if they could come round in the morning to finish felling and logging a couple of trees they'd made a start on six days ago.
Well.. should they come or not? Our lane is narrow, twisting, and difficult. We wouldn't want anyone to be faced with the prospect of having to reverse up it, particularly with a trailer. On the other hand, Heinz might not be able to come on any other day for a month and the sap was beginning to rise already. It's hard work sawing a sappy tree, and, once felled, it's wringing wet and takes four times longer to dry out. 'OK Heinz… we'd love to see you.'
The woodfolk arrived at about ten, and set to work. We'd warned them not to touch the three 8" sycamores in the drive until the tractor gang had arrived and left again. That still left plenty to do for four of us. Heinz knocked 'em down, the women hauled the brash to a bonfire site, and I hand-sawed the pole-sized pieces that are a pain for the chainsaw.
At 11 the tractor team arrived. There were four of them which seemed like overkill. One to turn the dinky little winch and three to stand by and applaud, surely?
Not a bit of it. It took four of us, pushing against various points of the carcase to move Scrapper a single millimetre, and that was after Doug had hacked away all the trash from behind the wheels. The hand winch just wasn't up to hauling a dead weight through mud. And things weren't helped by that flat tyre that acted like a skid mat, absorbing whatever forward energy was generated and using it instead to slew the tractor gently sideways. 'Levers, boys! Chas? What've you got?'
Orfyl followed me to the woodshed and we hauled out a couple of handy baulks, about four inches square and six feet long (ex-floor joists, rescued from a demolition site twenty-odd years ago. I knew they'd come in handy one day, according to Rule One of the Smallholder's Handbook: 'Never throw anything away. Never… ')
Yes.. they helped. We moved Scrapper all of an inch and a half, but it was still slewing off beam. 'More levers!'
We found an old iron pipe, 2" by about 7', part of an old milking parlour. Arwel stuck it under the back axle. 'Good, boys.'
We fixed Doug up with an old railway sleeper (farms are treasure troves of social history…) and we tried again. 'Heave!'
Yes! Another inch gained. 'Heave!' four men straining moved the brute a further magnificent inch. 'OK. Rest…'
It took the best part of an hour to move Scrapper the necessary couple of feet onto the trailer. After every inch gained, Raymond twizzled the little winch to take up the pathetic amount of slack. More than once he had to flick the release thingy so Orfyl could adjust the level of the flatbed. It was only when you heard the safety lever snap off that you realised what a risky job Raymond had. A titchy little cable, under great stress…. We joshed him boyishly about whose job it would be to pick his head out of the shrubbery should the wire snap. Oh, what fun…
Yes, eventually Scrapper was hauled safely aboard. I would never have believed it could have taken so long. But we'd enjoyed it. We'd faced a silly problem and had beaten it through intelligence, strength, and perseverance. And we'd worked well as a scratch team. No bullying; no bossiness; no back-sliding. Great stuff. Everyone was listened to. Every idea tried. Perfect.
I left them to the final job of tying Scrapper to the deck for his journey to Doug's shed.
The woodworkers were in the kitchen, clearly glad they weren't part of the tractor circus and only had the mundane jobs of climbing trees with a chainsaw to deal with.
A quick cup of tea, and I'm off up the drive to get Dad's lunch. Orfyl was ever so gradually hauling the Land Rover and trailer round the 90 degree angle from the track and onto the drive. He had about three inches total clearance to juggle with. 'Whoa!! Back! You're going in the ditch!' Try again…' Whoa! Stop!! The trailer's climbing the bank… the Scrapper's going to slide….'
I left them to it.
Ten yards up the lane I met a new Vauxhall coming down with a beautifully coiffed young woman in it. 'Hello?' 'Oh.. am I in the right place? I've come to do Mrs Harrison's hair…'
Oh yes, Anne had told me about her Mum's hair appointment.
'Yes. Right place, but er….' And I pointed behind me to the Land Rover rig which had finally got itself straightened out and was slowly hauling towards us. 'Oh…' said the lady.
'Well, one of you is going to have to reverse,' I thought. 'And it ain't going to be Orfyl and his whopping great trailer.'
The hairdresser tried valiantly, but almost went into both ditches within twenty seconds. The next time she stalled. Clearly, she was about to panic. I did my best and calmly waved her back, but we both knew…
'OK, I'll have a bash.' Mucky wellies onto pristine car mat. Can't be helped. Easy to start… now where's reverse? Ah.. it's written on the gear knob.. right…. Blimey.. what a flippin gearbox. I'm used to my Kangoo box which is light and very positive; this thing was like a jam jar full of knuckles…. Push…pull… what gear's that? No idea. Lift and pull back for reverse.. Wow! Got it! And after only one embarrassing diversion, I wound the ten yards back up the pitted windy drive to Dad's entrance where I could pull out of the way.
The convoy passed, waving and tooting, as convoys do. Orfyl couldn't resist pointing out to the hairdresser that older drivers were better. He meant 'men'. She knew.
There we are then. All we need now is for me to reverse onto the track and let the hairdresser continue down into our yard on her mission of mercy. But could I find that blasted reverse gear again? I tried six times. Lift, pull back; pull back, lift. Lift harder and pull back…. Not a chance.
In the end the lady got back in, fluttering about whether she'd broken her nice new car (I don't think reverse had ever been used before, frankly). And lo… in first time and away…..
Today has been very quiet.
posted by Chas Griffin at 2:52 PM
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