The small things in life

Mud, glorious mud (Steve Bardens©.)

It’s not just the arrival of wonderful new bikes, components or clothing (I wish!) that put an immediate smile on your face.  Small things can do that, too. 

This week, we’ve had a new kitchen put in at the Farley home.  My wife was understandably keen that my mountain biking hobby didn’t wreck it, so a rules list was drawn up:

1)     Under no circumstances am I to wear SPDs in the kitchen, as they will scratch the new tiled floor.

2)     No muddy kit is allowed to be worn in, or left smelling in a corner of, the kitchen.

3)     I am no longer allowed to attempt to attach the hose to the tap, as the new tap is a) expensive and b) my skills in this department are well established - said hose generally works its way half loose, resulting in the water  completely drenching the kitchen!  

The top 2 requests have been noted and duly filed in the section of my brain that tries to remember that an un-pissed off wife is a much happier one!

For rule number 3, I had sleepless nights thinking up possible solutions to the problem, but they always ended up being unsuitable e.g. countless trips with a bucket from the kitchen sink to my bike and back again, would be shoeless, sockless and potentially naked (see rules one and two above) and therefore quite harmful in Winter (and Spring!) ice and snow…

But then I hit upon an effective solution that was so simple that I almost didn’t see it.  As the plumber would be rearranging the sink and plumbing in our brand spanking new kitchen, I could ask him to fit an outside tap!  It was a Eureka moment! And cheap, too, as it turns out.  The plumber agreed to fit it for an extra £50 only.

The result is nothing short of amazing:  No pissed off wife; no faffing about taking off, then putting back on again, of my shoes, socks and clothes; and, no accidents in the kitchen.  It is truly amazing how the simplest things in life can raise the biggest smiles.  The only down side? My wife thinks that it is now much easier for me to wash her car, so expects that I clean it more often than I have been doing (i.e. never!)

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