Spares for repairs

So the other day, I went to flush the loo and the handle dropped and stayed dropped, and it didn't flush. A quick inspection revealed that a bit of plastic had broken in the mechanism, the bit that joined the handle to the plunger. I later learned that this is called a "lever arm". It didn't seem to be the sort of thing that I could manage to jury-rig a replacement for, which meant I had to find somewhere to sell me a replacement - it looked like such should be pretty cheap. At first, I thought that the local bathroom shop might have them, but I was out of luck as they didn't stock them (but looked around to see if they had a spare one lying about). That meant gearing myself up for a long walk down to the bottom of town, where there are more DIY supplies stores around, and then the long climb back up to home.

That, I decided, was a Monday type of mission. Today being Monday, I set off on my quest for the requisite item.

The first interesting thing on the quest was that I decided that I would continue my pick-up training by greeting people (especially women) with a cheery "afternoon!" The idea being that these low-level interactions ought to result in plenty of positive reinforcement for the idea of talking to people I don't know. That plan - on my way down the hill anyway - did not work. I got scowls or barely acknowledging my presence, from people who seemed to have no preoccupations at the time, not hurrying or anything. Very perturbing.

The next interesting thing was that the route went past a primary school, and I got to observe the range of people waiting at the primary school and see the social class divide that exists in my home town, in a way I don't at the moment. By chance, I seem to have ended up in a flat in one of the posher areas of town so I don't witness what it's like in other parts of the spectrum (a few times I have ridden the bus around town just looking out the window and seeing the different conditions in the estates it winds through). The reflection I have from what I saw today is that there are some human constants, it seems, namely caring for children and holding oneself with self-respect. As much as some of the mums (I didn't see a lot of dads waiting there) looked like stereotypical chavs or Essex girls, these women still held themselves and presented themselves with respect in their own eyes - the messages in their clothing are not the messages placed on them by others, I saw: they are instead always messages of "I have value in myself".

Then I went into the charity shop at the bottom of town and found two Transformers DVDs from the animated series, which takes me back to my youth (I've enjoyed reading TrinityVA's fanfics at her LJ/Dreamwidth pages).

After that, it was time to find the plumbing/DIY supplies shop. I guessed it would be in one of the industrial estates and searched all the way through the first one before seeing a signpost pointing along one of its side roads. I looked, and didn't see it. Turned out, it was hiding around the corner at the end. Then they didn't have a piece that matched the broken piece that I took along but they did have something that looked close enough, that was designed to fit several different systems. Mission accomplished (or so I hoped).

I think I may need a new pair of trainers, because my feet felt quite sore halfway through the climb back up the hill. They seemed to get better as I got closer to home, and the contours eased up a bit.

There are many contours to cross to get from bottom to top and I also worked up a right old sweat (proof, though, that I was getting some good exercise!) Despite this, my occasional greetings to passers by were more warmly welcomed on the climb back up. (I wonder if the difference was because they were going downhill now?)

Anyway, so I stripped out of my sweaty clothes, put some slob-around-the-home clothes on instead, and reached into the cistern to see if I could, in fact, repair the bog with the piece of plastic I had bought just under an hour previously.

With a little bit of jiggling, yes, it did fit, and so my loo flushes properly again now, which means that it was all worth it.

It's nice when a day goes almost exactly according to plan. It's also nice to be capable of keeping this place more-or-less in order by my own efforts.

One other thing: about halfway home, my headphones "pinged" out of position and it looks like a previous jury-rig has worked loose again, meaning I'll have to redo it, or come up with a different solution.