Tag Archives: Jack Beck

Booking Across the Road

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Jack’s weekly guest blog is about his mistress – aka his little red sports car

For those who don’t know, I own a bright red 1962 MGB. Back in Scotland I was her second owner, and thanks to the largesse of a friend who was her third and wanted her to settle with me in our golden years, I am her fourth. And MidGe, as we call her, is now an American citizen.IMG_4181

I took MidGe to our friendly local–as in 3 minutes walk, and about the same time driving–repair shop for her annual safety inspection. This is always a laugh, as cars over 25 years old only have to conform to the regulations in place when they were new; the list of ‘things to be checked’ is more than twenty items,  but the process goes fairly quickly: emission control? She doesn’t have any.  Reverse lights? Nope. And so on.

Hovering around was a young guy in the classic garb of a car mechanic:  baseball cap and dungarees of a uniform dark blue-grey (pretty much the color of 20w/30 motor oil, in fact – funny that!) He watched as MidGe was put through her paces, then ambled over and said, “lemeesrtatarrgharaghafirya.”

I said “Sure!” but thought What?!

It turns out that one of my rear lights was out. Baseball cap lad was clearly happy about this, as he’d been stroking MidGe in an affectionate way and sending her approving glances. It was obvious he couldn’t wait to get his hands on her.

He and his associate began to wrestle with the lamp fitting, which was attached to the over-rider by two small nuts and bolts, which in turn was attached to the rear bumper by a ginormous nut and bolt. Getting the bulb required all these to be dismantled.

Baseball cap lad looked positively radiant.

By the time they reached MidGe’s innards, I’d been there an hour, and the bookstore was due to open in 5 minutes. I explained to the young man that I would need to come back for the car later.

“Dyaaalnidanyilchyinge?” he said.

I blinked, stupefied.

“An ayil chainge,” he repeated, with hand gestures.

“Oh – an oil change – great, yes please.”

I set off and had walked a few yards when a thought struck me, so I called back, “Change the plugs as well.”

“Whaayit”?

“The spaaaaaark plugs,” I enunciated.

“Oh, seur. Whadabawt waayirs?”

I could only stare.

“Whaayirs!” Exasperated, he gave up on hand gestures and put his fists on his hips.

Clueless, I responded, “Those too, yes, thanks.”

I got poor MidGe back six hours later, looking offended; I’m sure baseball cap lad was too familiar with her, alone in the workroom. She had new plugs, new oil, new air filters, new wires and a new lamp housing –re-attached back to front.

Bless his heart.

The law of unintended consequences

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Jack’s weekly guest blog today reveals the bookstore planning methodology.

Regular readers of this blog will recall my guest posts towards the end of last year describing the conversion of our basement from a dark dismal hole into a light and airy work-space for Wendy. I thought maybe that would be the last major building work for a while – – –

But there’s the other half of the basement, which remains in its original cobwebby state, replete with concrete floor, brick walls and exposed roof beams/wiring/water pipes et al. But not for long, for Wendy has been thinking – – –

When Wendy says “I’ve been thinking – -” I just know there’s going to be work to do. Her latest wheeze is to make the second floor of the bookstore into a proper eating establishment. To explain – we’ve had a food license for  few years, with the intention of serving lunches in the bookstore. However the ever increasing bookshelves mean we’ve never really had the room to do that except occasionally when requested.

But we spend most of our free time in the store anyway and only sleep upstairs and, besides, there’s a perfectly good kitchen and bathroom upstairs as well as a couple of good sized rooms and a spacious landing. One of these rooms is currently our bedroom, so – – –

The still-to-be-converted additional room in the basement will become our bedroom, thereby making the whole space into our living apartment. It has a door into the yard in which I’ll fit a dog flap, so Zora and Bert will still have access to the yard and a place to hang out inside. That will also mean they will no longer be barking at customers from behind the gate at the bottom of the main staircase.

As we discussed all this and began to think about food styles and menus, Wendy said – “you know, I’ve been thinking – -. We could extend the bookstore upstairs as well. You’d only need to make a few more bookshelves – – -”

Aaarrrggghhh!