Spot the diff

25+ years ago, we were down the farm cutting bushes from one of the field boundary walls. Somewhere under the bushy debris along the East face of the wall there lies a pair of secateurs. We were younger then and, even without a formal inventory, could remember all the tools we had brought down for the task and had used over the previous couple of hours. It was lunchtime and none of us had the oomph to turn over 50m of spiny vegetation for an outside chance of recovering a tool which cost (then) €3.99 in Lidl. Javi was with us in those days, so there were three people to blame. We are always losing stuff . . . because we have so much stuff to lose. After the loss of the secateurs and a handy 90cm spike/crowbar, I painted most of the tools with red-and-yellow stripes [as L].

We were down in Enda's Corner tidying it up in advance of a film-crew and the spring of my current Lidl-secateurs went sproinnng into the vegetation. I didn't see it go, it just wasn't there, so finding it was to be a needle in a haystack affair. I didn't even start! I make the effort to retrieve nails and fence-staples in such circumstances because they can come back to bite you; but a wee bitty spring, not so much. And even if painted yellow and red, it would still be invisible to my rheumy olde eyes.

The machete / 'sward-sword' shown L is one of three which we inherited from The Beloved's Uncle Jim. He had commissioned them from the local smith in Kano, Nigeria and carried back to Ireland many years before 9/11 and the subsequent security theatre. We lent one of them to 'someone' years ago, never to be seen again, but I use the remaining pair on the reg'lar for brambles, bushes and briars. I periodically touch them up lethal sharp with an angle grinder. Indeed, two weeks ago I was trimming back the veg at the start of the lane beyond Harry's gate . It was a project, so I left the sword in place when distracted from the task by counting sheep, making tea and collecting the post. A week later, the goddam tool was not in its accustomed place, so I spent some time over about three days hunting and rehunting for it near Harry's gate and in all the usual places. It should have been here: can you spot the difference?

The old wooden chair has become a rack for small tools used in and about the polytunnel. So of course I checked there but only saw the handle of one of our pair of swords [as R above]. On the 19th time of looking, I knelt down to check behind the chair and under the table again. From that perspective, the blades of two swords were readily apparent . . . Bob the Autoconfused having covered the second handle with an inverted paper coffee cup.  Having a place for everything and everything in its place is a necessary but not sufficient solution to the lost tools problem.

StopPress:  that sproinged spring down in Enda's Corner? After my triumph with the once and future sword in the chair, I wondered how hard it could be to find that spring. Not that hard, it turned out: I got down on my knees to part the grass and saw it within 5 minutes. It was easier than expected because the spring was not the feeble / invisible helical wire I had in m'head, but a robust sausage as thick as a pencil. I have repatriated and threaded it back on the secateurs with anti-sproing spring string [as R].

Don't give up ♬ ♪ ♫ ♩
You know it's never been easy
Don't give up
'Cause I believe there's a place
There's a place where springs belong