The good morning, good night thread

[Rev. Austin]

I forgot about putting the clocks back and thought I woke up at 10:30, then spent two hours really confused and hungover haha I had a full day at my local art gallery yesterday and my back's killing me, but it was worth it - I helped kiddywinks make paper pumpkins and get all arty!  It was really cool.  And I got to take a real pumpkin home to do something "arty" with...I'm thinking of making up a fairy tale about a prince who turns into a pumpkin then writing it all over the pumpkin.  Phew!

[Caz]

I knocked up, barrowed and levelled four ton of concrete today and now my back hurts. Oooh the pain. 

[Ed]

Did you swap hands with the shovel every so often, or just do the whole lot the same way? I always try to alternate if I'm doing something strenuous and repetitive, then at least you get symmetrical pain.

[Geoff_N]

I do the same when riding my bike on 50+ mile journeys. No, I don't mean I alternate left and right foot  But remembering to lift my feet upwards instead of always pushing down. With the cleats there's still rotational energy when pulling up and it both relieves some leg muscles while exercising others.

Every few miles, when no one else is on the road, I windmill my arms or my shoulders get cramped.

Small fry compared to shoveling 4 tons of cement, sand, anything!

[Caz]

Did you swap hands with the shovel every so often, or just do the whole lot the same way?

No I just bit the bullet and struggled on, might try that idea though. I think the worst part of it was the barrow run which was mostly up hill and included a bouncy scaffold board ramp. Oh, what fun.

[digitaldeath]

being short of cash and common sense I bought a ruin in Spain. Now it is a five+ bed farmhouse. In four yours I have lost count of concrete and cement render, maybe a hundred tons. Then 250 square metres of ceramic floor tiles. All that with a deformed spine after a head on motorcycle accident, lorry on wrong side of road. It just proves I mad. Mind you that is why there is so much pain in the horror writing!

[Ed]

Sent out three subs to magazines tonight. Fingers crossed now

[desertwomble]

Sent out three subs to magazines tonight. Fingers crossed now

Is it your birthday, ED?

DW

[Ed]

I think it might just be, judging by the lucky escape I've just had. I was kneeling on the ground, drilling through a wall with a two inch diamond core when there was an almighty flashbang - I'd hit a mains electric cable that some idiot had threaded down the cavity - three phase 440 volts at 300 amps. Had I been touching any of the metal parts of the drill at the time, I'd be dead right now.

[delph_ambi]

Bloody 'ell, Ed... 

[JonP]

Good grief. How do we know it's you that's posting, though, Ed? This is Cafe Doom after all.

[Rook]

Damn....

I wouldn't take any risks for a few days, I would bet you've used up your luck.

I thought it was a cardinal rule not to attempt to electrocute your co-workers. What did the idiot have to say for himself?

Of course, JonP has a point.......perhaps it was no accident......

[delboy]

Sheesh! I'm glad you got all the competition stories posted at the weekend, Ed. Imagine if you hadn't!!

On a technical note, is it not the done thing threading a cable down the cavity wall? Not that I've ever thought about it before, but were I needing to run a cable from, say, the loft to the kitchen, dropping it down the cavity would seem like the most sensible solution. But I guess that's why I'm not a sparky!

Anyway, glad you're oka.

Derek

[Ed]

Rook - it wasn't anybody on site - it's the main from the street, before the meter and anything fancy like fuses or breakers. It would have been installed by the utility company. I wanted to channel my house's incoming mains down the cavity, sheathed in a steel pipe, which some companies let you do, but my provider won't allow it under any circumstances. This one was in a plastic pipe, which I'm pretty sure is illegal.

I didn't think much of it until the guys on site started calling me a lucky bastard. Usually I would have had one hand on the gearbox, which is aluminium, and the other hand on the handle pressing the trigger. If I had done that today I would be dead. It was a very close call when I think about it.

The guys on site said I should do the lottery tonight, because today must be the luckiest day of my life. I'll probably get hit by a bus on the way to the shop, now.

Del - funny, I thought the same thing. If I'd done the home perm thing, posting on the forum would have been the last thing on my wife's mind. Chances are I'd have just dropped off the radar and not been heard from again in and shape or form. Complete mystery.

[Caz]

Well done on surviving the shock, Ed. I've been zapped myself, one of the times I thought my arm had been blown off, painful stuff. Sounds like that dream you were talking about a few posts back may well have been a premonition.