Allen the Ever-present

Hex and jiminy, it's so much easier to deal with someone else's clutter! Following the departure of Pat the Salt last October, we have undertaken to clear out The Shanty at his old gaff on the Waterford Coast. The Shanty is a 2m x 4m garden shed sold as a kit and spectacularly under-engineered. The floor and roof consisting of 10mm pressed fibre-board sheets, the former covered with roofing felt. Several years ago, the place next door was rented to a single-parent dad who worked as a chippy. We helped populate a veg garden to amuse his daughter; and he offered to fix the Shanty's sagging wind-swept roof. The installation of a new marine-ply roof cost more that the whole shed-kit, but it seemed good value if only for feeding the local-local economy. 

16 cu.m. can hold a lorra shite! It was arranged that a van-with-two-man would come on Tuesday last to whisk away anything we didn't want including a matching slightly furry matching sofa-and-chair set and the decidedly furry mattress off a day-bed. Triage was the day before.

We set off bright and early last Monday. And when I say bright, this was Met Eireann's forcast for the day: ⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤.  But about five minutes into the trip The Beloved said "Dang, we'll need an Allen key to dismantle the day-bed, we should go back". I demurred, not least because with the ubiquity of Allen keys, I reckoned we could borrow one from the neighbours.

On arrival, we rolled up our sleeves, donned gloves, and set to. The first thing I picked up from the sagging Ikea shelves in the Shanty was a heavy Celebrations tin which rattled. Sure enough, in among the pot-pourri of screws, nails, hooks, spacers, scrapers and plugs, there were three Allen keys: one exactly the right size for that day-bed. 

It's a terrible thing the consumption of the planet's natural resources to make shoddy stuff that has a half-life measured in months rather than decades. We came away with a Yaris bootful  [~1 cu.m.] of stuff than can get a second life: including a brace of well-rusted club-hammers. Pat really believed in the club-hammer as a generic persuader. I concur and have several . . . when a Mummy hammer and Daddy hammer love each other very much etc. The haftless one [R above] weighs 12lb = 5½ kg which is too heavy for a) normal people b) normal handles.