Black Magic on a Dark Night

The Husband fixed the lock on the driver's door of our car last night.  He started on it at half past four, just as the dusk was deepening.  He spent four hours of his precious free time hard at it, mostly outside, in the dark, with a tiny key fob torch as his only task illumination. My Hero!

Periodically he'd come in to look at the lock in decent lighting, thaw out a bit and wash his filthy oily hands, which were as black as the night he'd come in from.  Then he'd gaze into the inner workings (or should that be inner NOT workings?) and fiddle and click and snap and prod, murmuring Man Words like sprocket and flange.  Not the actual words "sprocket" or "flange", you understand.  These were other, even more esoteric, Man Words.  Which I couldn't understand or hardly even hear so can't be expected to remember.  They were Man Words for use whilst doing important Willy Jobs, like fixing car door locks, that much I do know.

Spellbindingly Magical Man Words, as it turned out, with the power to transmute base metals into Jolly Useful Things as finally, after lots of tweaking, bending and fettling of wires and little levers and other sundry mechanical bits (and a brief break to eat his dinner) he had everything back in its correct place and the lock at last worked smoothly again.  The look on the husband's face when he reached this point was a picture.  One almost expected a cartoon light bulb to switch on above his head.  A eureka moment.

At about 9.00pm he went back out to the November night and fitted the lock into place in the door. By braille, I think (I wonder if he was a safe-cracker or a jemmy man in a previous, much more nefarious, life?)

I poured him a huge glass of red and ran him a hot bath  A man who can fix broken car locks deserves a valet, even if only for half an hour.

So today I was able get in and out of the driver's seat the good old orthodox way which we usually all take for granted, via the driver's door, in a seemly elegant fashion, a bit like this

rather than the palaver of contortion I'd been obliged to do of late.  Which was

1)   open passenger door
2)   sit in passenger seat
3)   lean over to slide the driver's seat back as far as it would go
4)   swing legs over so feet are in the driver's foot well
5)   haul huge fat arse over the hand brake and into the driver's seat
6)   fume and swear quite a bit
7)   reposition car seat to taste, at preferred distance from steering wheel
8)   adjust mirrors, checking how red and sweaty face is after the exertion

All without showing one's knickers, or the certificate would have to go back to the Lucy Clayton school.

Thank you, Husband Mine.  I think he deserves another huge glass of red for that, now he's back in from earning our daily crust.  I'm away to pour a couple.  CHEERS!