Repair
I was plinking away of the piano when son came in an interupted me.
"The door bell went", he said, "It was Ed."
"Did you let him in?" I said - slightly surprised that some had been so helpful in his social interaction.
He had. Ed is the son of a good friend of mine and earlier this afternoon I'd offered to help him fix his puncture.
"I'll let him know when I'll be in", I said to his father, "And its up to him if he comes around."
I'd sort of not expected him to come and was pleased to see him. He had the bike wheel with him and no bike - which was also a relief as I'd envisioned an oily bike going through my living room.
"How do you get it off?" he said referring to the tyre.
"With tyre levers", I said fishing out some from a box - "or failing that spoons."
"Have you got a pump?"I asked as I removed the tyre.
"Err no..." he said.
"Oh!", I said "Its a car valve - I expect there's one around here somewhere".
"I don't suppose you can - like - use your mouth," He said.
"I don't think so." I said. "I'm just going to look in the shed.
The keys to the shed didn't seem to work. I thought it must be rusted so I gave it an extra hard twist. Snap - went the key in the lock.
I went back in and told Ed what had happened as I carried on looking for a pump valve.
"I'm not in the mood for getting stressed about little things like the shed," I said. "I'll worry about that later.
A little later I managed to borrow a pump from a neighbour. It was a big stand up one and worked a treat. We found two splits in the inner tube. I fixed the first one and he did the second one using my directions (and one that he had brought from a friend).
He thanked me repeatedly. On one occasion I said
"It's nice to be able to do something to make me feel masculine".
"He said he felt like that sometimes.
We drank tea and listened to music as we worked. Just before he left he remembered that he needed to borrow his dads spare key to get back in his house. He told me that he would get another one cut near his mums.
"That's between you and your dad." I said.