Wimp!

It’s just turned mid-day and I’ve just got back from the small garage at Rouffignac. After Russ’s suggestion to use an air gun to undo the nut holding the blade on my mower, I thought I’d nip up there and see if the chap would do it for me. I told him what the problem was and asked if he could do it with his machine that he uses for wheel nuts. He just took one look at the nut, got his hand-held socket onto it, held the blade with his other hand and undid it. Easy, just like that, in a few seconds. What a wimp I must be turning into, in my old age!!

Then he took the blade, held it in his vice and roughly straightened it, finishing off the job with a heavy hammer. The ‘piece de resistance’ was when he got out his small angle grinder and ground a bit off to match the blades up so it was in balance – all in less than 10 minutes. I was well pleased to hand over 10€ and having just tried the mower out a couple of times up and down the grass in front of my house, I can confirm that it’s working as well as it ever has.

So much for the ‘expert’ at Thonac who said it needed a new blade and in any case, the engine was probably knackered. I think he was just hoping to flog a new mower to another ‘wealthy’ (not) British ex-pat. I won’t be going back there again, that’s for sure – but I’ll be giving more business to my new friend in the garage at Rouffignac, though, when I need to.