I can do anything but surgery

It was a mostly sunny—or, at least, not rainy—day today, so that meant more outdoor work. Of course. I had two projects on my list, and this one I only talked about at the time on my personal Facebook, though I have no idea why not here, too. At any rate, the before image (left above) is new to the blog (as is the after on the right end, of course).

On January 19, 2021, my outside clothesline collapsed because the builders working on my house installed it incorrectly (I know the date because I posted it to Facebook). I just left it hanging there, and for two reasons: First, I bought a new clothes dryer a few days later, so I was able to use that, and because I wanted to buy a new, better clothesline. Time passed, and I decided the clothesline I wanted was an extravagance, and I needed to repair the one I already had—but how?

The company that made it has changed the hinge/hanger mechanism to one that's far more sensible and easier to deal with than mine has, and the builder didn't leave the manual for the clothesline. That meant I couldn't easily find the assembly instructions, so I had no idea how to fix it. I figured it out, but where had I put my hex wrenches?

The clothesline frame was attached to the hinge/hanger mechanism two different two-headed bolt thingees, with a hex nut at each end. So, I needed two of the same size I figured out where what I wanted might be (it was), BUT I needed two hex wrenches (aka "allen keys") of the same size. I had a hunt today and found the set I wanted, plus another one.

I successfully got the hinge/hanger mechanism detached from the clothesline frame, then attached it to the fence, replacing the screw that failed with a longer one that went deep into timber (not just a fence board like before). That was fiddly, but I did it (at right in the photo above). Only trouble is, I need another set of hands to help me pull it so I can re-connect the parts that fell apart—or, to be honest, I may be able to do it after a good night's sleep, because this was my second project of the day (I'll talk about the other project later), and I was already sore and tired.

As I was reattaching the clothesline frame to its newly and solidly-installed hinge/hanger mechanism, I was thinking to myself how "there's nothing I can't do"—not literally, like, I think it'd be a very bad idea for me to perform surgery, but in the sense that if I set my mind to it, I can accomplish pretty much any task that's within my realistic abilities.

This is nothing new, but I think I kind of lost my way. Part of that is that Nigel was so brilliant at everything he did that I just didn't need to figure things out, and now I do. I’ve talked about that a few times now, about how I’m essentially rediscovering abilities I'd forgotten, especially with regard to tech stuff. I realise now that same thing could be applied to all sorts of things, even new ones. Like fixing broken clotheslines.

Just not surgery. That’d be a very bad idea.