Conversation is therapy said a charismatic gentleman I met at Cherrywood Coffee House last week. There’s some truth in that, and that possibly explains this long conversation I’m having with the internet.
At the intersection of conversation, odd Anglophilic ex-pat behaviour and car maintenance comes the choice part of the Venn Diagram of personal therapy for me it seems.
So to counteract a lack of sleep last night, I spent a few hours sandwiched between hydraulic oil spattered concrete and a rusty but intact exhaust pipe this morning. My old tools came out – my trusted long time friends, and I wailed on the bottom of my black cab like Uma Thurman in a coffin in Kill Bill. My knuckles look and feel appropriately battered as if I’ve been street fighting with Kimbo Slice’s older, tougher brother.
I’m not sure if this is another rite of (long) passage, but I’ve never taken on something this far out of my mechanical experience. Well not recently anyway.
It seems when I want to build confidence and replenish my inner tank of unstoppableness, I take something like this on. So here’s the random oil-covered part of the day photo.
I did the easy things on the list that involve undoing bolts and shouting futhermucker from time to time. Next step is to elevate the frame and drop out the gearbox. How hard can that be? As you can see, my tank is refreshed.