a fridge in the garage

On Saturday some old friends came round for supper and they brought a fridge.

Not just an ordinary fridge (for this was no ordinary supper) but a 144-bottle capacity wine-fridge: 174cm high, about the same weight as a 2m x 1m  section of glass flooring, and about as easy to lift out of the van.

The destination was the corner of my garage  - at the far end of about 100m of roughly-surfaced back alley, all without the aid of huskies

Luckily my friends had thought ahead and they had brought with them a small dentist’s trolley - by which I mean a small trolley belonging to a dentist, rather than a regular trolley belonging to a small dentist. Although on reflection it was both.  Whatever:  neither the trolley nor the dentist were capable of moving the fridge without the help of three grown men and lot of cursing.

So anyway : my friends and I, and Botogol junior, set to with enthusiasm and carefully manoeuvred the fridge along the alley, into the garage and shoved it snugly into the corner, whereupon we replaced the shelves, filled it with two dozen bottles of prosecco (and three of ancient port) and switched it on.  The motor hummed into life and I with pleasure. It will be just perfect for my Condrieu. If only I hadn't drunk both bottles.

Then, because it was only three o clock and  dinner wasn’t nearly ready yet, my friends took their van home, Botogol Jnr disappeared to play a game of no-racquet squash, and the very moment they had all left I changed my mind about where I wanted the fridge.  So, I switched it off again, removed all the bottles and the shelves, remounted the wall-bracket for the lawnmower, moved the wheelbarrow and my Squires  three-piece luxury rake set, and commenced the task of shifting a two-ton fridge to the diagonally opposite corner of the garage, entirely on my own, watched by a relaxed and amused Mrs Botogol, enjoying a glass of warm prosecco.

I grunted and heaved; heaved and grunted.

“You look like an Easter Islander with brand new moai”, Mrs B observed, not unkindly, “..so why don’t you move it the way they moved theirs?”, and with that she sauntered, light-footed out of the garage.

 “Of course”, I thought to myself, “I’ll fetch the axe and chop down the ornamental eucalyptus tree and make some rollers”

....

“I just don’t think they could have done it like this”, I remarked to Mrs Botogol, an hour or so later, sweating in the furnace heat of a garage no longer shaded by beautiful eucalyptus, pondering the crushed and sorry remains of seven tree-trunk rollers.  “This will never work. The garage smells nice though”

“You fool, Alibert”, she said, pushing her shoulder firmly against the fridge, and rocking it gently from side to side  “That wasn’t the way they did it”


Q: If an ersatz writer and one-time blogger chops down an imaginary tree as a joke for his blog, but there is no one out there to read it, is it still funny?

Look, I fixed it

"I reckon I can turn my hand to any DIY task!", I said proudly over my shoulder, while feeling gingerly with my toes for the top of the step ladder.

Mrs Botogol wasn't overwhelmingly impressed. "What do you mean: any task, dear?"

"Well you know: fencing, tiling, roofing, guttering, perching"

"Perching?"

"Perching on roofs, fixing gutters."

"Ah.... So is it fixed, dear?"

Reaching the ground I turned and together we surveyed my work ¹:
- a gutter previously sagging
- a block of wood, hacked roughly to size and skillfully jammed under.

"You know: some people would get a man in for a simple job like that"

---------------------------------------
¹ If you look closely you can still see the gunge

Bodging it

OK, so the problem was that the rain didn't actually drip into the gutter - oh no - it was running round the edge of the roof-felt and back along the underside of the roof, through the gap between the gutter and the wall..

 

(see it?)

and then down the wall.

..making the wall very wet.

Solution?

Get a man in?

No, sir!
I bodged it...

 

 
 

Good eh?

And this evening I have fixed my computer by taking it apart and hoovering out all the dust. 

Is there anything I can't bodge?

I think not.

This Old House

picture by Mc Morr

Like everyone who works for an investment bank we have two properties: one to live in and one to lie awake at night, worrying about, when it's empty.

Still, at least it gives me plenty of time to practice my DIY, now that we're unable to afford any workmen, on account of the credit crunch; and the totally irresponsible lending policies of HSBC (what on earth were they thinking of lending me 134 times my bonus?), and last weekend I mostly spent painting (it turned out when I lifted up the old and evidently porous newspapers) our front doorstep.


Next weekend I am mostly removing paint, and that may not sound like fun, but actually it's a reassuring thing having a weekend planned ahead. Normally I wait for Mrs Botogol to tell me what to wear, then I put on the clothes that are indicated, inspect myself carefully in the mirror and I might think  "Smart shirt, stripey trousers? Hey, I reckon I'm going to a dinner party!" or  "Boots, Jeans, Jacket? - a long walk"   Last weekend I found myself in old t-shirt, shorts and trainers:  "Am I going jogging?"  "No you're washing the car"

The house is looking nice now; even if the front door does need another coat.
15th Century it is (the house, not the door) in Rye, if you would like to rent it. Then I could use the money to get a man in.

Bespoke Joinery

picture by florriebassingbourn

At the weekend I bought a new cat flap for Mrs Botogol (no, don't be silly, of course not: for her cats)

Now, when it comes to fitting cat flaps I actually have form. I don't want to rake over old domestics, so I'll just mention a new cat-flap, a stupid glass cutter where you simply scratch a circle and then (supposedly) sharply tap once and remove the glass, and an emergency glazier. On Boxing Day.

So this time I read the instructions very carefully.

First, measure the belly-height of your cat.

"KIDS!", I yelled, "I've got a job for you" and went off to fetch the muzzle.

Shut Out

by Robby Garbett

This evening I kicked down the side door of our garage.

Well, the lock had somehow broken, and I clamped the up-and-over door completely closed some years ago after the garage was burgled (they stole an electric drill and pair of gloves... ie equipment with which to perform more burglaries. "Burglar bootstrapping" I said to the police with a chuckle, and they asked me how to spell that and said they would come round eleven weeks on Friday.


The key was revolving round in the lock with nothing happening. "It's broken", I pronounced gravely and I took a credit card and slid it into the small gap between the door and the frame. This works in films. It doesn't work in real life.

I fetched my boots and prepared to use force. Mrs Botogol came out to watch, this she was not going to miss. I was not without trepidation - would it do a lot of damage? did I need a sledgehammer? how much force would be required - would it bruise my heel?

I took a deep breath and kicked as hard as I could.

The door flew open immediately and I fell over onto my backside.

Levelling Out

Vodka Level by - Martin Koitmäe

It turns out the floor of the cellar in our house is far from level and every time the washing machine reached the spinning bit it rattled and it shook, and it walked down the slope until its power lead came out of its socket.

"We need to get a longer extension lead, perhaps", I remarked to Mrs Botogol when I took down her supper, and placed it carefully beside her on top of the the shuddering appliance, "it's a shame you having to spend so much time down here, and in the dark as well"

Mrs B invited me to try and think of a better solution, please, and within days I had it: "I'll build a platform", I said, "lightweight but sturdy, closely-contoured yet level, of chipboard or MDF, as wide as the cellar and exactly 605 mill deep"

"Lovely, but do you think you can dear", she asked, not unkindly, "after all: it's a long time since you did any DIY, and isn't your tape measure marked up in inches?"

Reader, I will leave you to judge by results: for a platform it indubitably is.

I had to buy a new saw to do it (from the tiny store) and on that multi-toothed blade I cut myself four times. On the floor there you may just be able to make out traces of mopped-up blood.