Thursday 17 May 2012

I am confined to

barracks...grrrrr. On my way home from a funeral on Tuesday there was a sound in the pedal area that should not have been there.  The Senior Cat and I oiled the strategic spot and I took it off for a careful pedal up our little street and back again. CRUNCH! Oh.
My knowledge of the mechanics of my tricycle is limited but even I could guess that the most likely cause is the bearings have worn in what I think might be called the pedal shaft . Well, something like that.
We have rung the owner of the bicycle business which sold my tricycle to me. He is used to dealing with tricycle emergencies. We hope he will be here today to take it away and repair it. We hope it will not take him too long.
Being without wheels is a real problem for me. We do not have a car. I cannot in any case drive a car. My father has a gopher but I cannot "drive" that either - even if he would allow me to try (unlikely). There is no public transport near us. (It would have, at very least to be no further than the end of the street for me to use it.)
My tricycle is used to do our shopping. (The Senior Cat is hopeless at grocery shopping.) It is used for visits to the Post Office and the bank and the library. I also use it to maintain a watchful eye on several elderly people who live alone.
I had to make a round of 'phone calls this morning reassuring them that I was all right and asking if they needed anything from the chemist. If they did then the Senior Cat would deliver the prescriptions and the chemist, a nice young Vietnamese man who lives in the next street, would deliver them on his way home.
Thankfully nobody needed anything.
The Senior Cat had to visit the bank this morning. I sent him off with a note to give the girls in the greengrocer's. One of the boys in there showed the Senior Cat where to find things. The girls checked and added the carrots!
If we urgently need anything else I will send an SOS to my sister but, in the meantime, we will manage.
I do not want to trust the Senior Cat with any more shopping!
We had to take the handle bars off my wheels too - so that it can fit in the back of the vehicle coming to collect it. The Senior Cat investigated. He went and found his collection of Allen keys and decided that he did not have one to fit one point so the handle bars would have to come off at another. He went to get a wrench because he could not shift the key. I investigated the keys and found one that fitted the earlier point. On his return I showed him. Oh. We removed the handlebars. He shook his head.
         "Fancy a female finding an Allen key to fit."
There was a little grin on his face. He had got his own back!

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