Suicide Blackspot

It's official the country lane that skirts our house has it seems become a place for Pheasants to "off" themselves spectacularly, or more fittingly.....the Dignitas of Carmarthen for game birds.......we've had two in as many weeks splatter themselves all over the pot holed road in full view of our bedroom, which I have to say isn't nice when you look out in the morning....

We went to the beach yesterday Telpyn point just past Marros, fun was had by all, we had a BBQ on the beach, and removed all of our rubbish because I personally cannot stand people who leave beer cans and bottles and any other rubbish on the beach, it spoils it for others.....FOMO boy had a strop on the way back because he was asked to carry a bag up the hill... which we found hilarious....He's going to learn eventually that strops don't work in the slightest with either me or Andrea.... Freya got absolutely filthy because she thought rolling about in the shale at the top of the beach was great fun..... but we all enjoyed it....

We did witness a bit of weirdness on the beach ... namely a rather overweight woman wandering around the beach, the weird thing was she walked around like the living dead with her arms straight down the side of her body.......she must have done about five circuits and then when the tide came in she wandered out into the surf up to her chest IN HER DRESS !!! and continued walking around in the sea a bit like an aimless Dalek .... strange

Today we have a BBQ planned at our house with a few good friends... I will most probably be the Chef..... as usual... probably because I don't incinerate the food and thus far nobody has died from food poisoning.... Andrea has just nipped out for her run and should be back in about an hour or so .... not sure how many miles it is, no doubt her Garmin Forerunner will tell the tale when she gets back.... She's starting her training for the Snowdonia Marathon in October in the next few days.... So I'll probably get my wife back just after October by my calculations......

I killed the lawnmower yesterday

it's very old and very tired, so old in fact the blade housing has holes in it where stones have been flung through its paper thin rusting body..... but it still works.. or it did until I went over stone/root and it bent a bit of metal up inside the blade housing and consequently stopped the beast dead.....

So I took it down to the workshop and tipped it on its side got the grinder and started grinding off the offending bit of bent metal... it was too thick to bend out of the way .....when "Woof" it caught fire right under the carburettor ....

I can see you all tutting now saying I should have emptied the petrol tank before I started with the sparks everywhere.... well I actually did think ahead and I did empty the fuel from the tank and this is where it got considerably worse very quickly ...

Prior to grinding it I thought "hmmmm I'll have to empty the petrol tank, just in case !!....which I did and mopped up what I'd spilt with a large rag ... because it's not easy emptying a lawnmower fuel tank..... I then moved away from the area (very large workshop plenty of space) I'd accidentally spilled the petrol on and started grinding

Cue Quentin Tarantino style cut back to burning carburettor...I flicked the lawn mower onto it's wheels by this time the flames were about a foot high...and despite several attempts to smother the flames .....it just didn't work....then the fuel line melted and they got about 3 feet high.... so I rushed across to where I emptied the fuel out and picked up THE RAG ....instinctively thinking I could stuff this under the gap where it's getting air to smother the flames.... YUP the rag burst into flames quite vigorously as I was holding it..... it still had petrol on it (Duhhhh....of course) so now I had two fires, luckily I didn't throw the rag towards the ice cream tub half full of petrol or I would have had 3 fires to deal with ..... (Don't panic Mr Mannering.....)

It was at this point a stunned Andrea arrived home to find me desperately trying to smother a burning lawn mower....she noticed the billowing black smoke no doubt coming from the workshop....so lets recap one burning mower and a large rag on fire several metres away.... my attempts to smother simply wasn't happening little did I know that by turning the mower on it's side I had filled the foam air filter with the remaining petrol from the carb....

it wasn't going out in a hurry....

I knew the only way to get it out would be to remove the air filter with it's top screw but I honestly didn't fancy barbecuing my hands and arms.... so to shouts of "What the hell are you doing ?" I raced past my confused wife seeing no real need to explain what I was doing because it was pretty damn obvious by that time......and into the house (which is a good 30 metres away up the iron stairs out into the yard then down the driveway) .... I had got to the stage now where despite all the warnings about water and petrol on fire never the two should you mix.... I'd run out of options

even the kids were joining in gleefully filling sand buckets for the beach with water....

thankfully a single pan of water put it out immediately without spreading the fire any further.... we cleared the area after I had made sure it wasn't smouldering away and had tea while the smoke dispersed.....

I had to replace the carb and petrol tank and the air filter (thankfully we had an even older Briggs and Stratton mower which I robbed the parts off) and it's now working again despite being thoroughly cooked by me... although I'll have to setup it's idle speed because currently it thinks it's entered a formula 1 race...... any faster and it would be a hover mower.....

Pretty much a normal day at our house....

Stuart Cable

RIP