In my previous post about the great Frankston flood of 2012, I failed to make the observation about how lucky we were when the hot water pipe burst while someone was home. Imagine the mess [and subsequent mildew pong] we would have had if the on-demand-just-keeps-on-filling hot water service had been happily pumping water into the house for hours.
Things must and do go wrong from time to time, but timing is everything. After a visit with some friends years ago, up in the hills where the roads are windy? wind a lot and are narrow [sorry about that, they don’t always have wind], I climbed into my little car and about 60 seconds after take off the steering died. Given the timing and location, I could live with that.
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Now I can change a tyre if I have to, but would rather not. A very long time ago, driving between Mildura and Adelaide
After entering what remained of the little township after the copper mine had closed, I drove around for a block or two then found a garage with a work-shop.
It was a warm day, and sweat ran in rivers down the face of the proprietor as he pummelled and banged with hammer and lever to remove said tyre from wheel. I kept my fingers crossed that he would not croak from the effort before the job was finished, or before what looked like his rapidly approaching age of retirement.
After quite a bit of pummelling and banging I wondered if I would croak before he finished.
He fixed the inner tube and then, with some more pummelling and pounding, eventually got the tyre back on the wheel, and the tyred wheel back on my car.
The total cost was something like $5 [I told you this was a very long time ago], but I gave him an extra $2 and told him to go and have a couple of pots of beer.
Relieved that neither of us had died during the repair process, I set off in search of a road from Burra to Adelaide
*The tune used for my favourite AFL team's theme song
