Some Tyred Old Jokes

   Looking at the nice tyres on our latest transport cast my mind back to some of my earlier cars, back indeed to a tatty Austin A30 which was, I think my third four-wheeled transport. In those halcyon days the dreaded MOT had not been introduced and one ran a vehicle until it ceased to run and then scrapped it. a friend ran a Vauxhall Velox with a chassis so rusty that it broke in two one day, going over the level crossing in Military Road! The same care-free attitude applied to tyres  They were replaced by paupers like myself, not when they went bald but when the carcase started to show through the rubber.... And yet I can`t remember the accident rate being any higher than today.
    I was bowling merrily along in the region of Abergavenny when a loud bang from the rear of the car made me leap almost from my seat. Hoping I had just run over a stone, I slowed down carefully but as the speed came off the car sank down at the back, a puncture. In fact, it was worse than that, the tyre had burst. As you can imagine, this was not my first experience of this, and I soon had the little car jacked up, changed the tyre and we proceeded on our way to Portsmouth, or rather to Gosport, my home at the time.

    The cheapest shop for tyres locally was a little one-man shop in a side-street between the High St and Forton road  I replaced the tyre and while the proprietor was fitting it, I admired his display of `killer tyres` in a rack outside, all bald and worn. I was a bit peeved when he came out with my old tyre, removed the least bad of the display and substituted mine....

   Mind you, this chap was a real joker. He told me he had whiled away his hours of waiting for a customer by a series of practical jokes. His most successful was to braze a coin, say a sixpenny piece onto a broad-headed nail with his welding torch. He would then hammer this embellished nail into the asphalt pavement outside the shop and wait for the fun to start. A passer-by would spot the coin, glance round and make a furtive grab, only to find the sixpence firmly stuck. Some would leave it, others would break their nails on it. One chap was down on his knees working away with his pen-knife to free the coin! The tyre-seller was amazed at the lengths to which folk would go to possess this small coin. It didn`t stop him roaring with laughter at their antics! A variant of this was an old leather wallet firmly nailed to the ground. It is an indicator of the style of his wit, when I say that he had filled it with dog-turds...
    Happy days.. Bye for now, going to make a cuppa

Barking Mad

    You`ve heard me speak before of our dog Laika, a reject from our neighbour, who found her unsuitable for hunting, not that she was not interested, very much the opposite. She will chase anything that moves over the horizon, returning home when she is exhausted, not what the keen chasseur needs! The poor thing ended up tied to a tree in the garden,with  no shelter, to keep her from wandering off. When she did manage to escape, she would come to visit us and we eventually took her over. She is a very appealing and affectionate dog but has a few little foibles that we have managed to adapt to or to accept as part of the package.... one is the hunting mania, we have to keep her on a long lead when walking, though we hope to train her out of it...perhaps. The other is a habit of thieving, she will steal anything left available, even jumping on the table or work surface and impossible to discourage. Possibly this is a  habit of her previous life, I think she has had to live rough in the past and is used to foraging. But the habit which nearly drove us nuts is barking.

     If anyone passes our door, she will race to guard it with a hysterical volley of shrill barks and no admonishments or even clouts will dissuade her. In the car, it`s cyclists, motorcycles and heavy lorries that incur her wrath and driving becomes a torment, so much so that we have tended not to take the dogs any more, which is a pity, as all the dogs enjoy it.

    Seeking a method of control for the problem, we thought to try a collar which gives the dog a slight electric shock if it barks, and we found one on our local `Things for sale in Deux Sèvres`  site by a lady who had bought one, but was too tender-hearted to fit it on her dog. This apparatus, made by Petsafe, consists of a collar supporting a little box containing a bark detector and a couple of electrodes which give the wearer a jolt if she barks. We were not too hopeful of success, as Laika is so obstinate, and I was afraid that she might bark all the more at the shock, starting off a vicious circle. however, the result has been extremely successful, much to our delight. Almost as soon as the collar was put on, Laika gave up barking-- we think that perhaps this is not her first experience of a control collar. A couple of times she forgot, and emitted a short bark, followed by a squeak as the device operated but now she refrains from her obsessive rage at any passer-by, even the post can put a letter in the box without protest. Best of all, we can take her in the car again, without our nerves being shredded! We don`t put the collar on at night or when we are not in the house, nor, of course, when we are walking the dogs, so she can at least exercise her voice sometimes. Still, the collar has changed her very much for the better and in spite of a brief shock I think she is a happier dog. I wonder whether it can be adapted to work when she leaps onto the table!

     Bye for now, coffee calls!