I HAD A WHEELBARROW, THE WHEEL FELL OFF ..

It is a bank holiday over here today, so we have downed tools, as we can't afford to pay ourselves double time, and day in lieu.

I have been turning my hand to things mechanical lately, starting with the wheelbarrow. When we were building up the vegetable patch, it ran over a nail and got a puncture. I managed to get the wheel off, and then got the tube out, using a crowbar as a tyre lever, and found the hole OK.

I managed to patch it using a boat repair kit that we had left over from repairing our old paddling pool. Then I tested it again, and found another smaller puncture close to the first. I patched this one as well and the next day, after the patches had dried, the wheelbarrow was up and running again.

A few days later, I noticed that the tyre had gone down again. It must have had a slow puncture, so I grabbed my crow bar, and levered the tube out again. Sure enough, one of the patches was not quite suck down at the sides. I re-glued it and the next morning put it back on the wheel and tried to blow it up. Nothing doing, so I levered the tyre off yet again, and retested the the tube once more. There were two more holes this time. I must have torn the tube with the end on the crowbar when I was levering the tyre back on.

Two more patches ( the ratio of tube to patch is about 50-50 now) and 24 hours later, the tube was finally OK and the wheel is back on.

I'm getting quite fast at getting the wheel on and off now. If the Renault F1 team need someone to look after their wheelbarrow, I could be their man!

With the wheelbarrow finally fixed, I turned my attention back to mowing. I opened up the shed, turned 'Hank Hill' the mower on and tried to reverse it out of the shed. No movement. For some reason, the drive belt had slipped off of a pulley. Five minutes off groping around later, the belt was back on I was ready to go.

I did the front patch quickly, but then I had to go and get some more petrol, as the Jerry can was empty. Twenty minutes later, I had refueled, and I started on the main patch. I had gone barely 50 yards when the blades stopped going round. I stopped it straight away and had a look under the hood. A large bolt that acts a spindle for one of the blade-drive pulleys had decided to give up the ghost after eight years, and it had sheered off.

Although I bought the mower in France, it is an American make ( Murray) and so all of it's bolts are imperial ( 5/8 th 's etc) . This makes it hard to get spares, as everything over here is metric, and 5/8th of an inch is between 8 and 9 mm. So, I took the broken bolt off to Chabanais, were I last got the mower repaired, and waited in line, as they were very busy. After a while, they took the bolt, but after much searching, they came back with a slightly bigger bolt, asked me to try it, but didn't charge me for it.

I drove back home and tried the bolt. but it was too big to go in the centre of the pulley. I then drove of, in a different direction to Chasseneiul, to the shop that sold me the mower years ago.

I explained to the mower counter that it was an American mower, and that the bolt was not metric, but was imperial ( as best as I could ) but they could not help me, so the sent me across the road to a different part of the shop. The guy there got out his gauge, measured it up and said that he didn't have anything, as it was not a metric bolt. I then went through the whole story of the mower being American, and the fact that I had bought it there in the first place. He then phoned up the mower counter and explained it to the once again. Back across the road, they did have one the right width, but it was longer. Knowing from past experience how long it takes to order anything. I took a chance.

Back home, I got the pulley back together and threaded it up, The long bolt fitted with a few millimetres to spare. Drama over.

It only took me an hour and a half to mow the hole garden, as dad had done such a good job on it when he was over, but it took an extra 3 hours getting petrol, fixing belts, getting bolts and making repairs.

So remember, a tractor mower is NOT A TOY! ( It is really) .