Helping a friend is reciprocal

After I published my blog last night I had a little bit of a scare. Sassy suddenly started sneezing and not just once, but over and over and over again. I was really concerned, but I noticed that she had just gone to eat some of the hay I had given her, which I had pulled from the barn the other day to start giving her when the stuff I brought from England ran out.

I pulled the hay out immediately but she kept sneezing; I managed to pick her up (not an easy thing as she doesn't really like you doing that) and checked her nose but while it was a bit wet, there were no secretions at all that I could see. I put her back and she kept sneezing therefore I got really quite worried. Fortunately I was assisted via skype and twitter and sent this link and this really did calm me down. She continued to sneeze on and off through the evening but, after getting me really worried when her eyes showed her whites and she was seemingly unable to breath, she has now calmed totally and stopped sneezing. So thanks for the help; you know who you are!

So, panic over, I headed to bed and slept through until the alarm woke me at 7am. I should really mark with a tag all the days I have to wake with an alarm, huh. It isn't many so far though I suppose when workmen are arriving it could become more regular. The reason for my early start was my plans had changed; rather than collecting the furniture with my friend on Sunday we had received word that it was ready now so she decided to ask me if I was free today and of course I said yes.

The first thing I did was go to check the weather; it had been forecast to rain most of today and, while I knew I was going to take the monster tarpaulin with me, I still wanted to see what it was saying. No joy; the application on my phone wouldn't reload. I couldn't get anything working on the internet on my phone. Oh dear. I went to Room 13 and tried the laptop and I could get facebook and google to work, but not twitter, hotmail or my studio website.Very strange indeed. I had a brew and muddled it in my head for a bit, and asked my friend what she was seeing and it was exactly the same behaviour, but then I had to leave so I headed out. On the way I asked twitter for a DNS server I could use and, when I arrived at her house, I went and changed the router to point to 8.8.8.8 (we ARE close to Turkey here, you know). Strangely I was now able to ping and tracert to these sites, but still couldn't get any http connection (sorry, went all techincal there).

After a bit of time spent with my troubleshooting engineer head getting frustrated with no understanding the problem it became time to leave and we had arranged to give a friend of my friend a lift to town so I hitched up the trailer while she was collected and then it was off to town. Now I had noticed, as if my internet breaking wasn't a bad enough start to the day, that my car had developed a rattle from the rear end and I had diagnosed the problem upon arriving at my friends as the exhaust vibrating against a support which it had become entirely separated from. Before anything, therefore, we went straight to the garage and showed it to the guy there who just smiled, nodded, drove the car into the workshop and returned it about 5 minutes later with the rattle fixed and the strut welded to the exhaust, and charged me 5lev (about £2.30) for the pleasure. Amazing.

The artisan in his workshop

The little man who is friends with the deaf/mute artisan was ready a bit quicker today, probably because I sat in the car and my friend went to fetch him. Apparently they were all set for us to sit have coffee with them however with other stuff to do there was no time to spare. I remembered the route to the guys house and this time pulled Thomas right inside his property and round so the trailer was closer to the workshop where the items were stored.

Photos looking around his workshop

I snapped a few pictures around the workshop while I was in there and the first item was being carried out to the trailer. It looks very traditional but I know from the previous visit that he has a load of electrical tools hidden away that he uses, as well as the hand tools on display.

He doesn't look impressed, huh

The two men then came back to lift the second item over to the trailer and so I went after them and helped by taking their picture as they struggled up the slope. These items of furniture were really solidly made, with thick backs to them and not light at all. I helped get the second unit positioned on the trailer as it was awkward for two people to manouvre it and I think they appreciated that more than the photographs.

Strapped down and ready for the off

With them both on the trailer it was my job to secure them with the straps and I did this with two going over the from side to side and one in front, and then a couple more going from front to back. I attached them to the chassis as I had been recommended and it all seemed fine so off we went. We had got back onto the track leading past the top of the guys land when I noticed one of the straps had slipped loose so we stopped and I retightened it, double checking every single one again and I couldn't get any of them to move at all.

Happy again we drove away and I was super careful all the time; this is not my own furniture and I was aware that any large bumps might jar it and cause damage which I did not want to do. We were OK until just as we were driving past a little bar and shop area when I heard a pop, looked back to a cloud of smoke, and all the men sat outside the bar ran after us. I pulled over and it was as I thought; a tyre had blown out on the trailer!

Shredded tyre and knackered strap

True to form the men were super helpful and one ran to his own car (he turned out to actually be the owner of the pub) to get a jack while I went to find the tyre iron to remove the wheel. It was quickly obvious what had happened. The strap which I had hitched in front of the wheel had jumped off on the other side and the hook and ratchet on this side had swung back and wrapped around the axle before shredding the tyre by the simple action of the metal being pressed against the inside side wall. That tyre is not mendable, and will shortly appear in my garden with something growing in it I think. I can tell you that I will never again be hooking the straps to the chassis and will be forcing them inside the squares of the walls of the trailer where they will not be able to slip out.

I didn't have a spare so we unhitched the trailer, my friend and the little man went into the bar for a drink, and I sped from there back home and then returned with the spare wheel to refit it. It took a couple of minutes tops to do this, including having a couple of the men lift the trailer so we could refit the wheel as the jack was a little too small, and then everyone was smiling, the trailer was better again, and I went to join my friend in the bar. I had another turkish coffee (slightly nicer than the last one) and then we bought a few bits for lunch and headed on back to town to drop the little man off and then onwards towards hers.

The four wheel drive vehicle after climbing the weir

There was some kind of cross country race going on involving serious off road vehicles which we had encountered in the mountains on the way down and, as we crossed the bridge over the river in town we saw some vehicles going under. Typically it was the last of them and we stood waiting for more in vain, but I did snap some long range pictures as the car tried (and eventually succeeded) to drive straight up a weir. They were amazing looking vehicles with independent suspension and huge engines. As we stood there the gaggle of people watching dispersed and so on we went, to unhitch the trailer and have lunch.

Lunch was nardenitsa with onions on bread with seranai and butter and mayonaise and was really nice; I had missed breakfast so, after all the excitement, I was really quite ready for it. After dinner my friend started on the task she had promised to help me with; making a blind to hang at the very top of the window in Room 13 just to stop the glare from the sun in the mornings if I am working here. She did a cracking job on the material which we had bought in town last week, first of all putting hems all around it, then working out where the folds should be and sewing across so I can insert poles for rigidity at these points. I have no pictures, as I was helping (hah) to keep the material moving however I will get some when I hang it which will be tomorrow as I need to get some dowling for it to hang from.

Pretty much as soon as this was completed I headed home as I was tired and so was my friend. I have since just pottered around, made myself chips again with the advised method however they did not come out as nice as my ones so I'll be doing it with them in from cold oil from now on *glares* however my dinner was very tasty and the second glass of beer really helped to wash it down.

So the fire is cracking, Sassy hasn't sneezed once since I've been back (and I have another thing on my list which is a mesh bag so I can boil and wash the hay to try and make it not allergic for her) and now it is time to chill and chat and then head to bed and sleep and not have to have an alarm tomorrow morning.