Can We Fix It?

Someone who is related to me by marriage is a great one for fixing things. He never likes to just get a new thing if there's some way he can bodge up a repair of the broken thing. And bodge up is the appropriate word - he doesn't buy new parts for things, he improvises. So he saves all the bent nails and used screws, and salvages every bit of wood,  metal or wire in case it might come in useful some time.

Pictured here is the repair to the handle of the spool which winds up the garden hose. The original is plastic and, as often happens with weathered plastic, it snapped off. So what El Bodger has done is wire together the snapped handle bit and fix it with glue to a wooden disk fashioned from some old plywood. Of course, the glue wasn't strong enough so he's going to have to amend the design somewhat and nail the plastic spindle to the plywood as well. I had the privilege of being El Bodger's assistant during the operation, my role being to do the heavy work of sawing the plywood and screwing the screws (of different sizes) through the wired up plastic handle into the plywood  - a task made slightly more difficult because of the lack of decent screwdrivers, the Maestro having mislaid the nice new set I bought him a couple of years ago. I am pleased to say that I also provided some advice and persuaded El Bodger to use a screw through the spindle and not just the glue, otherwise the whole thing would have fallen apart. I have left the Maestro to do the additional nails himself; work having been suspended by the serving of apple pie and a cup of tea.