Normalement

Autumn has arrived

Autumn is well and truly upon us, finally all the leaves are falling and we have been bathed in fog for weeks. Today however, the sun has come out at last, to match my mood, you see yesterday I received a phone call I have been waiting for, for months.

Just as a glimmer of hope started to peak through the fog, I received the news that my Christmas present had arrived! Since last Christmas I have been searching for something to spend my Christmas money on and I finally found just what I wanted late in September. I have been searching all year, but the models available were too small or too big or not the right shape or, or, or, the list goes on, but at the end of September a leaflet dropped into our letterbox with just the thing I wanted. We rushed straight round to the shop in question to view what they had, only to find that, even though they were supposed to be on offer that week, there were none in the shop. One could be ordered for me and it would be in next week “normalement”.

Christmas present still wrapped

Anyone who has ever had dealings with the French and their “normalement” will know what that means. Next week came and went as did the following week. I chased them up after a month and they said, “oh do you still want one, we thought as the order had taken so long you might not be interested anymore” . Why not ask in future - I mumbled under my breath as I assured them I was very interested. It will be in next week “normalement”.

Two weeks ago I phoned again and was told that it would be in mid-November. “Normallement?” I asked, yes normalement. I went in to the shop on the 14th and was told that it would arrive mid-November (they know me and my order by now without having to look up the paperwork) I suggested that it was now mid-November what with it being the 14th and all, to which they agreed with a look of surprise, but still no item to be collected. So you can imagine my excitement when I received “The Call”. I was in the car and round to the shop before they could say “normalement”.

We paid at the till with the crisp notes that had been in my Christmas envelop since last year and were told to collect my present at the big gate. Along came a forklift truck with a pallet and more than 100kg of Christmas present. We looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. Firstly, we hadn’t realised it would be that big and secondly, even if this burly chap could get it in the car, how the heck would we get it out at the other end? Never mind, we’re intelligent enough creatures, we will find a way.

Using our combined engineering skill base, we did manage to get it out of the car without either of us slipping a disk and there we had it - 100kg of log splitter, in a box, in our vide.

In action..

Now what? Open the top of the box to read the instructions. The first instruction is how to get it out of the box, which should have been done before putting it upright. How do you find that out, without the instructions which you can’t access until it is upright? We ad-libbed. The assembly went smoothly until I had two pieces left over which did not appear anywhere in the instructions - fortunately their website shed some light those and within a jiffy it was ready to roll.

So now to try it out, I dusted off my steel toe-capped boots and found my face protector and heavy gloves and set to. Dah dah, I managed to split a log and here’s the photo to prove it.

Now I have a couple more logs to sort out….