A chance to exchange notes on the little everyday things that cheer you up when you're down, or make an ordinary day into a better one. Winning move unaltered.
[Simons Mith] Good one. I'll volley that back with the "Morse" theme. I'm particularly fond of the bit where the French Horns swell up. Into tubas, presumably. But then they'd be French Potatoes I suppose. Musical theory was never my strong suit.
I'm not sure how I feel about walking through an antiques fleamarket and thinking, not once but several times, "that's not old, I had one of those!" A box of metal puzzles that I'm sure was exactly the same make and design as one my brother had, a set of mathematical instruments, manual sewing machines just like my aunt's, a metal right-angle just like the one my father made in the army (and which I still have), and of course any number of slide rules.
Being able to point at the giant sliderule hanging next to the canoe and the stuffed Springbok head in a local "casual dining" restaurant and say "I know how to use that to do hard sums".
Sitting in a 6th floor office in Rotterdam with a window that faces west over the city towards the Port of Rotterdam and watching the storms coming in from the North Sea only 20 miles away, swallowing the city's skyscrapers as it approaches.
Being able to do simple diy stuff, like today, clearing an airlock in the hot water system; repairing a useful bag with a staple gun; making a jig to remove downlighters without damaging the ceiling.
Life has become a lot simpler since I realized that 90% of the time, preserving the parts that you are replacing is a waste of time. New faucet required? No more struggling with claw wrenches in hard-to-reach places to remove water supply risers. Now I loosen the retaining nuts enough to lift the faucet up from the sink and Mister Tiger Saw has me doing the installation part in minutes. Light fixtures I fitted ten years ago won't take the new lightbulb de jour anyway so I just bin 'em and start over.