Once upon a time I was due to go on hols with Wifey when we was both workin and had booked a gite in S France for two weeks. A coupla days before my then son -in -law called in a favour, he was moving and needed to empty his shed.
now his sheds are always about 4 times bigger than most peeps'.
So I went over there expecting to see another mate of his called Scotty who is a braw little sod but no he weren't there.
""What are we shiftin, then?" quoth I
"Oh just that kitchen range and a couple of engines."
He had a low trailer to move them with but they had to be man handled out of the shed, down the garden onto the drive and onto it.
The kitchen range was quite stripped down but Victorian cast iron weighs a ton and is not easy to get hold of but we struggled it on, well I did, ex s-i-l could lift a house if he had to.
Then one of the engines, no sweat.
The last was a Yank cast V8 block cos he likes his yanks. He said to me "Which end do you want? The hard end or the easy end?" as one end had bolts sticking out of it to connect to a gear box that was obvs the "easy end" so I opted for that.
So he said "OK, you turn it round then." So we could both get hold of it. I lifted up one end and twisted with it.
Crack went my back. As usual it isn't just the lift it is the turning at the same time that did it.
But we still had to get it on the trailer as he was moving out of the house the following day. So somehow we got it onto the trailer.
So there was me with the knackered back and a holiday to go on that meant driving for a coupla days solid.
Wifey was furious but I couldn't have done anything else. I drove till I couldn't stand it any more, then she drove but the passenger seat didn't have height control unlike the driver's seat so I had my head and neck constantly bent and that didn't help at all, so I ended up driving yet more.
What a pain. If it hadn't been for the book "Callanetics for your back" that I took with me and whose exercises I did religiously every day, the holiday would have ended very early and I would never have heard the end of it.
My ex s-i-l still rings me occasionally saying "Are you feeling strong?". I am a lot more circumspect about what he is asking me to help him with.
