This afternoon I had to blow up the tyre on our wheelbarrow. As I struggled to put the sodding pump onto the inaccessible fucking valve I felt a sharp stab of nostalgia, nay a veritable Proustian rush, as I recalled this thread, surely a contender for what in Afterword post terms is known, I believe, in these acronym-filled times, as the GOAT.
ATM (really): right-angle valve adaptor for wheelbarrow wheel?
Just checked through the old post and I asked if it was possible to get a folding wheelbarrow.
Well I got one, it’s crap you can’t tip it up when full as it folds up on itself.
Solid tyre though; no punctures.
Hubert’s half way there – the answer to all the sodding foot pump and inaccessible fucking valve issues is, indeed, a solid tyre. Laugh at blackthorn sprigs, spit on rusty old barbed wire, ruthlessly mock casually discarded broken glass. The solid wheelbarrow tyre is veritably your key to garden crap lugging smugness.
As recent convert says: listen to Foxy on this point.
“… inflatable tyres are not the way to go … upgraded my inflatable tyre wheel to a solid rubber job and never looked back …”
(my comment to original post, 19/06/2016)
I think it was the general and ignorant poo-pooing of this comment that led to my retirement from The Afterword. And yet here we are, four years later, with the solid tyre suddenly the only wheelbarrow option for the reasonable man.
Cuh.
Just don’t get me started on electric powered wheelbarrows. Fine for moving but useless for dumping.
The solid wheel on this barrow is a trifle narrow which means it can be a bugger to move and can sink in soft ground. Is there a hover-barrow?
‘They all laughed at Christopher Columbus, when he said the world was round…’
Just goes to show dun it? Give HP a proper topic and like a ferret up a drainpipe, he’s back!
I have to confess, though, that I have no idea where my wheelbarrow is. Not that I care – I have the soft hands of the poet, the indulged sybarite, the lotus eater.
Wheelbarrows are for the stout yeoman of the tilth, the horny-handed brute as suited to hard labour as I am to a gin and tonic.
I too am a workshy fop.
Twenty-odd years ago, when I first met Mrs F’s Spanish family (mainly Galician fishermen), one of them turned to her and said (in the local Galego slang, so I wouldn’t understand) “He has a woman’s hands!”
O
uc
h!
I am here to serve, Lodes, I am here to serve….
Ten Ways to Avoid Lending Your Wheelbarrow to Anybody – Adrian Mitchell
1 PATRIOTIC
May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
I didn’t lay down my life in World War II
so that you could borrow my wheelbarrow.
2 SNOBBISH
May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
Unfortunately Lord Goodman is using it.
3 OVERWEENING
May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
It is too mighty a conveyance to be wielded
by any mortal save myself.
4 PIOUS
May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
My wheelbarrow is reserved for religious ceremonies.
5 MELODRAMATIC
May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
I would sooner be broken on its wheel
and buried in its barrow.
6 PATHETIC
May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
I am dying of schizophrenia
and all you can talk about is wheelbarrows.
7 DEFENSIVE
May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
Do you think I’m made of wheelbarrows?
8 SINISTER
May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
It is full of blood.
9 LECHEROUS
May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
Only if I can fuck your wife in it.
10 PHILOSOPHICAL
May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
What is a wheelbarrow?
Brilliant! Never seen that before.
I missed that thread at the time but so glad I’ve caught up. I feel like a bit of a rookie though because I don’t actually own a wheelbarrow and never have done. What am I missing??
Well, there’s a whole world of manly trundling out there just waiting for you….
But actually, if I’m honest, not a lot if you don’t need to move soil, mulch, bricks or railway sleepers (Mrs thep’s speciality).
A wheelbarrow is used once a year when the Log Man drops 6 steres of 60cm wood in the back alley. Three hours and 400 wheelbarrow trips later the winter fuel is stacked and it’s time for me to spend a week in bed with a broken back
Time for a song methinks. Another use.
Wheelbarrow and Boadicea
Thep’s finest hour. Been downhill, in a barrow, ever since.
Huh.