Imprisonment - Day 72

Imprisonment - Day seventy two
Monday 1st June 2020

Cars - 42
Motorbikes - 0
Bikes - 0
Dog walkers - 1
Walkers - 2
Runners - 0
Horses - 0
Horse walkers - 0
Molehills - 0
Cycling temperature - 10.1c

There were not as many cars as I expected this morning. If I remember rightly I counted 40 cars on the Tuesday after the bank holiday last week. But after the busy weekend there were very few people out exercising. Although I did see Lotsa Dog.

At the end of May I always have a big tidy up of the garden as the daffodils have died off and the lawn stops growing like crazy. So I started mowing and disappeared in a cloud of dust as it is so dry with some parts of the lawn looking as brown the drought ridden Garden Route we drove through in South Africa in January. I used two apps to see how far I'd travelled whilst mowing. One said 1.91 miles and the other said 3.12 miles. I am amazed how far apart they were. So I really don't know how far I travel when mowing the lawn. Its all a bit of a mystery. I do know for certain that the drive belt to the deck fell off three times as the belt is becoming worn but I will persist until it is completely frayed and breaks. The main drive belt to the wheels was slipping too which was probably not helped by it being so hot but I think it has stretched over the years and needs replacing . I will put up with it for now but it has been added to my list of things to do. The flymo started second or third pull but started to misfire after about 5 minutes as for some reason I topped it up with neat petrol with no two stroke oil. When I realised what I'd done I added oil and it ran OK for a bit then went poorly again so I'll have to take a closer look tomorrow. Now the strimmer is usually well behaved and as always started with the first pull of the cord but after about an hours use there was a terrible grinding sound and the head stopped turning. I took it apart to investigate and found that the spline on the drive shaft was badly worn and slipping. During the evening I looked on Google and found a replacement but I could not find a clutch housing which the spline fits into. I think both need replacing as the spline on the shaft is completely worn out and the clutch housing must be warn too. The problem is that the cost of these parts add up and are not worth buying as they are a good chunk of the cost of a completely new strimmer. So I've decided it's kill or cure time and that I will weld the drive shaft to the clutch housing and if it works all's good and if it doesn't I'll buy a new one. I can't complain as this was the cheapest strimmer I could find at the time and it's lasted for getting on ten years.

I had hoped to get all the mowing flymoing strimming and leaf blowing done today but it looks as if tomorrow will be taken up repairing the strimmer and taking a look see at the flymo. If all goes well then I can complete tidying up the garden.

We have problems with getting the bed as Ashley decided it would take him too long to pick it up and in any event he had nowhere to store it in his flat. So to cut a long story short Ros found a man with a van who will pick it up and deliver it to us at a very reasonable price which will save us having to drive a 180 mile round trip to pick it up ourselves.

During the morning a Bentley friend popped over on his bike for a quick chat saying he was starting to get bored with being locked in at home. I told him that with all I've got to do and repair I haven't got time to waste being bored.