The Old Man Goes Stir Crazy

Normally The Old Man lives to drive to a shop. It is not just the shopping that he do live for you understand. It be the driving also. But recently the car starts to make a strange sound.... And the garage says: "Bearings." The car must come in for repairs for a couple of days.

The calculations for catching a bus back from delivering the car by 8.30 a.m. are made and soon the deed is done. And  then....
The Old Man goes stir crazy.
He has no means to get anywhere except shank's pony (it be raining all the time) or.... The Bus.

The Bus.
We do look at the time table again.
...(Where I do find that the Bus Company have already removed the "reinstated" through-bus to Truro for instance... and have replaced it with the old system of changing buses. The journey will take one and a half hours each way. Admittedly this be an improvement on the two hour changing-bus journey it used to be... nevertheless... I am not so sure about plans to meet up with a friend for lunch. Three hours travelling for lunch? Well at least I do not have a medical appointment at the Hospital. Been there... done that... not fun. And I could read a book.... perhaps finish it whilst about it. And I do be a privileged money-wasting pensioner what do get a bus pass, hence the journey do not cost me the £7 or £8 or so that it probably be by now.)

One day into his driving "cold-turkey" experience, The Old Man breaks..... consults the bus timetable and sets off into the damp gloom for his two hour round journey to pick up the newspaper from the shop four miles down the road. Me? I's just relieved that he do leave the house after all that pacing around....and wondering when the garage will ring.... And I do find that it be true that The Old Man is also addicted to newspapers.

After another twenty-four hours of agony The Old Man sprints out of the door when the call from the repairs shop comes.... to collect his beloved vehicle of independence. He leaves his lunch on the worktop. The front door crashes shut. He do work out he can just catch the Next Bus.....

Listening to Lhasa's "The Living Road"

The Old Man's New "Atavar" (sic) Takes Shape

Still much wrestlin' goin' on with wires and stuff.

The Old Man do want Mrs D to measure him for accuracy. She do say there is a limit....

...And the word be AVATAR not ATAVAR.

Mrs D Struggles With Her Wires

Mrs D do exclaim that she shall...
"Start the New Year as she means to go on..." which means mending The Old Man and getting on with the animating thing. In fact this means that she do spend a lot of time shouting and weeping that she... "Can't do this!!" whilst she wrestles with tiny (4mm) grub screws and allen keys ... and would-be "legs" drop off their brass "pelvises" at the rate of nineteen to the dozen.

Grub screw (Wikipedia)

Allen key (Wikipedia)

Mrs D do fortify herself with leftover Christmas port whilst real-life Old Man tries to calm her hysterical outbursts (for she be also her mother's daughter) and explains strategies for dealing with lively little grub screws like putting them into place in the joints first, whether she needs them or not.

Common sense and intuition from Mrs D's creative brain eventually wins out and she realises that the mock-up won't work until she uses the proper gauge of twisted wire... which she finds after rummaging around in her workroom....

Now she has succeeded in producing the rather eery spectacle of a disembodied spine and set of wire legs standing in their steel and brass "shoes" on the dining table.

None of us know how we feel about that.

Sticks And Stones And Wires And Bones

Mrs D's "Armature Kit" order do arrive yesterday. Very toot sweet.

This is a basic kit. Proper ones come with all sorts of rotating ball joints so that elbows and arms and knees can move in the right way. This one will depend on bendy wires (twisted aluminium). Which is why The Old Man's leg do drop off at Christmas when the wire do give up the ghost and break. (Protest at being bent about all the time.) But this kit comes with brass thingummys to screw wires into at hips and shoulders which should mean that you can fit a new arm or leg if something breaks. Mind you... means you have to be able to get at the joint under the body form and covering.

Steel feet plates you can screw the leg wires into... that are pre-drilled for bolt and wing-nut tie-downs or can be used with a magnet to hold in place onto the set floor.... Ha! "Set Floor".... who are we kidding....

So anyway we's all ready for the remodelling of The Old Man. Who do look nervous at the prospect.

January 2nd And I do Say....

.....Hello my dears and here we do go again.

Putting the rubbish out this mornin' (Old Year), I do spy a primrose (New Year)... although it do try to hide its head under its leaves.... after the stuff what do go on in 2012 what do you expect? The rain, the floods and all sorts of dreadful stuff. Yes I do include the ill-thought-out, knee-jerk-rubbish Mr Smoothy-Face Cammo and his governing cohorts do come out with an' all.

Oh Fine, you do say. January the Second and already she be going on about stuff. Bang. Bang.

Anyway... have observed Mrs D getting her pantaloons in a twist considering the remake of The Old Man and attempting to purchase a basic kit for keeping his legs and arms on. The Old Men (both "avatar" and "analogue" be apprehensive.)

Happy New Year....

...from GreyDoll and The Old Man....

And I Also Resolve....

..... to get Mrs D to give me ("moi aussi") a makeover also.

I be working quite hard this last two years for an old girl made of pipe-cleaners and cotton wool. Do you remember my head did fall off a while back? Mrs D had to step in quick there. Not to mention the time me finger snapped off as well. Which be worse you think? Head drop off? Leg drop off?
What a pair us Old Uns be.

The time has come to grasp the pliers, Mrs D.