I’VE BEEN RASPUTIN!*

*(Which is to say, I have been Russian madly!)

Apologies to those who have recently visited my blog and left pawprints, but have not had return visits.  I have been reading all the email posts I can, just to keep up to date, but have lacked the time to visit actual sites.  I will try to get back to that.

We have had more garden obligations, plus attending a garden club prizegiving, and I have also been involved in some tricky formatting technicalities.  Inter alia.

For the occasion of Younger Daughter’s birthday on Sunday, she elected to go to an animal farm we haven’t visited yet.  I would have thought she would have chosen scenery or a restaurant or something, but it would seem that what keeps the kids happy keeps her happy.  Anyway, we went to the relatively new Winsome View at Shongweni and had  a delicious cream tea, while meeting and petting a good selection of animals.

I don’t care what she does: I’m staying here!

I’m cock of the walk around here!

Get that human lamb thing OFF me!

Young R looked at the size of ‘pony’ on offer for pony rides (well, at 14 hands, technically it still is one) and declared, ‘No way!’  Then she watched her sister delightedly riding, so changed her mind and did well.  Even I had a brief ride to remind my muscles and reflexes how it is done.

Yesterday it came to pass that I needed to laminate some promotional pages.  I put one in wrongly, and it came to a grinding halt.  No amount of yanking would get the paper and melted plastic out of the innards, so the only solution was to get at the laminator rollers.

It is clear that the machine was designed by somebody even madder than Rasputin.   In order to free the jam it is necessary to take the whole thing almost down to component parts.  After taking off the shell to expose the innards, the circuit board has to come off one side and the motor off the other. Then one can start removing the sides proper, to get at the rollers.  One of the screws either side one needs to unscrew for this purpose has a thin metal rod over the top of it, going into slots on either side. This rod won’t move due to a shaft up against it, to which it is apparently designed to provide resistance.  It can be seen that if the shaft is slid out, the rod will be freed.  However, in order to slide the shaft out, one needs to loosen the screw …………………….. but the screw has the rod blocking it!  Talk about ‘hole in my bucket’ or Catch 22!

 Anyway, I solved that using the old masculine standby of brute force and ignorance.  A bit of bad temper was also involved.  It is now un-jammed and working meekly and perfectly.

To close with, some water lilies on one of our ponds.

© October 2012 Colonialist (WordPress)

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