Category Archives: between books

The Mouse that Showered – –

Posted on by
4

Jack sprints home and arrives on Wednesday – –

THE CULPRIT – – –

Most mornings Wendy wakes up long before me and heads downstairs to start her day – very often around six o’clock. She usually leaves me to slumber on for another hour or so. But if she comes back and shakes me awake then that means there is some kind of emergency. Maybe a large pile of cat poop somewhere or the chickens have escaped from the yard; that kind of thing – –

A few days ago we had one of those mornings. I stumbled downstairs to find that a corner of the kitchen in front of the sink had transformed into a paddling pool!

Kneeling in the water, and after frantically closing off all the valves I could see, we could still hear water spraying somewhere. Finally Wendy discovered the main valves to the kitchen hiding in our bathroom closet and the sound stopped. Every towel in the house was utilized to soak up the water.

Having made sure we’d stopped the leak and still had water available in the bathroom for coffee and to flush the toilet we could attend our weekly Zoom meeting with close friends. It’s quite hard to have a relaxed conversation while wondering if there’s a swimming pool under your kitchen floor!

I checked under the sinks and couldn’t see any sign of a water leak there so began to realize that it must be the dishwasher which is right next to them. I pulled it out, made sure that the appropriate valve was closed and got Wendy to turn the main one back on, while listening carefully with my one good ear. No sound, so I very carefully opened the valve for the dishwasher and peered under – eureka!

The metal braided hose had a hole and was spraying water happily – – –

So we washed dishes in the sink while we waited for Amazon to send us a replacement hose and it arrived today. Since I’m getting a bit stiff these days and finding it more difficult to get into convoluted positions it was a ‘fair fechty battle’ to fit the new hose. But when I looked at the old one it was pretty obvious it had been chewed by a mouse and when I pointed my flashlight into the void I could see where it had come in. I cut up a tin can and closed off the mouse entry and will spray peppermint oil liberally while keeping my fingers crossed!

I can still see that mouse singing in the spray – – –

Up, Up, and Away – –

Posted on by
2

Jack makes it in time again – just – – –

I came across a photo recently that brought back many memories of one of my teenage passions.

I think I was first introduced to the magic of flying model planes by my Dad – he was recuperating from two broken ankles and built a model glider from a kit. Then a beloved woodwork teacher at the high school I attended started a model building after school club when I was about thirteen. He and some of his adult friends went on to establish Dunfermline model aircraft club and rented an old empty house in a village just outside town. I joined that and could go there any time to work on my models or just hang out with my pals. We also shared copies of two popular specialist magazines – Aeromodeller and Model Aircraft.

We lived on the edge of town with fields right behind the house where I could test fly my planes, but the club had permission to fly on farmland further away. So most weekends when the weather allowed I would walk the thirty minutes to the clubhouse and then a further thirty minutes to the flying site.

Me aged 15 test gliding my own design free-flight model.

Most years a group of us would rent or borrow a van and drive to the Scottish and British championships, although we rarely won anything.

I was most interested in two specialist types of planes – competition free flight and ½ A team racing. Free flight involved the model corkscrewing up vertically under power for 15 seconds and then gliding for as long as possible in circles. You were allowed three flights and if any exceeded three minutes that was termed a ‘max’. All those that got a full set of maxes went on to the next round and so on until you had a winner.

But there was one member of the club who was a few years older than me that became a big influence on me. He introduced me to jazz music and he was snappy dresser, so of course I became a snappy dresser too! Ian wasn’t interested in free flight; his passion was team racing. This involved planes flying very fast (80 – 100 mph) in a circle aiming to be first to finish. They were ‘control line’ models (U control in the US), with the pilot in the middle of a 100 foot circle holding a U shaped handle with two thin wires attached to the plane which controls the up and down movement. The models have a specified size, engine capacity and fuel tank capacity. Up to four planes fly simultaneously with all the pilots entwined round each other in the middle. I was the ‘pitman’ and my job was to refuel the racer and restart the engine while dodging the other ones flying over my head.

A 1/2 A team racer

I continued as a member of the club until I was about twenty and over time there began to be quite an overlap between models, jazz and eventually folk music.

That link eventually re-emerged when I was booked to sing at Dunfermline folksong club about twelve years ago. My old high school woodwork teacher, George Simpson, was in the audience!

Many years later and after I retired and moved to the US I revisited my teenage passion and discovered that electric motors had taken over as well as cheap and easy radio control. Much less messy and much less likelihood of losing models – or breaking a finger with a back-firing diesel engine!