Battery Acid

Today is my first day on the bike this week and of course it rains. The heavens opened when I was about half way.

Squash is off, so today must be Friday as tomorrow can’t be Friday as we have the East Leake Night Trail and also Daughter is coming to stay.

Talking of the Night Trail, I get the head torches out but only one of them works. The second one has become corroded and nothing I do can seem to get it cleaned up. I look on the internet and they recommend dripping vinegar on the corroded bits to neutralize battery acid. It fizzes away beautifully and then when I’ve dried it out, it works! 

The light is still very faint so I try some more vinegar on the other side of the battery case. More fizzing and... now it doesn’t work at all plus everything smells like we’re in a chip shop.

(Thursday 10^th November)

Cocktails

I bike, L swims. I hope she didn’t take the wrong kit like I did last night.

We seem to have blocked pipes and the normal unblock stuff from Sainsbury’s doesn't shift it. L’s googling recommends a cocktail of bicarbonate soda, vinegar and hot water. Which is probably only a couple of ingredients short of bomb making. I give her permission to pinch my wine vinegar.

The bathroom people ring and tell me that despite the fact we ordered it back in early July, and paid a 20% deposit, the toilet we chose is now out of stock. So we can either choose another one or stick with ours until they can get one sent to us at end of October. FFS springs to mind. I think somebody doesn’t understand the accepted use of the word ‘deposit’.

L meets Daughter at the train station. She's back in Nottingham yet again, sadly this time it is for the occasion of L’s brother funeral tomorrow. They both join us in the Navigation pub where we go after squash.

I lose 4-1 but I was just about to make it 4-2 because I was 9-3 up when the next pair of players knocked on the door. I'm sure I saw money change hands.

(Tuesday 4^th October)

A Lesson In Common Sense

On the radio this morning is a chap who L and I have both raced in triathlons. He is spreading the tale of how he took up triathlon, got fit and lost weight. A quick google tells me radio it’s the only place he’s put himself about, he’s been in several newspapers, even national ones like the Daily Mail. Now apparently he’s a qualified triathlon coach. Well if he can do it, so can I. Not triathlon though... all that swimming. Ugh.

So hopefully my city council coaching course will be on tonight. This is the third time they’ve tried to schedule ‘Disability Awareness’.

This week’s shopping challenge - Cider Vinegar. Doubt it’ll be with the cider, although you never know. It should be, perhaps, with the vinegar but I’m taking nothing for granted, it could be somewhere else entirely...

‘Disability Awareness’, which I figure is something I need to know about, is on. Although, they ring round because they’re struggling for numbers. I was only their third positive response...

In the end there are seven of us and there we get up to all sort of high jinks. Being blind, mute, deaf, being wheelchair bound etc. They condense down a five hour course into three hours for us. It's a good job they did, it is really just a course in common sense and we don’t really learn much new. Apparently council employees have to sit through this every two years. Blimey.

(Tuesday 15th February)