Trolley 465

Spoilt for choice outside the creationists' accommodation block yesterday morning, provided one did not mind a trolley from Sainsbury's. I elected to take the unusual trolley, still made by Wanzl, complete with special holders for one's baguette and for one's newspaper, with the yellow handles. Plus the regular holder for one's baby or toddler.

It also had unusual wheels, each wheel being equipped with a pair of what looked like hard plastic discs rather than tyres. Plus what looks to be a black wheel fitted with a lock (not deployed) front left. Returned to the special needs stack. Among the many trolleys there and in the immediate vicinity, just one with the disc style of wheels, which I am fairly sure I have come across before, but certainly not present in significant numbers yesterday.

Heading along the passage to the footbridge over the railway, I acquired beam two, a near twelve foot length of four by two. A beam which looked to be in reasonable condition, although not new and rather dirty. As often happens with such things, it seemed light enough when I first picked it up, but it soon became both heavy and unwieldy. Shouldering it seemed to work best, although I thought better of doing that across the footbridge. But even so, it did make me puff a bit, and I needed a brief rest every few hundred yards or so.

A bit later, on Blenheim Road, I came across a tubular, stretchy blue garment, possibly what is called a tank top for a small person. Not very clean, but it was dry, and slid along the beam made a good pad for the shoulder.

Several rests later, the beam was delivered to our front drive. Later, I wondered about what I would have thought were the much heavier mesh panels which I carried along the rather longer route from Homebase. No mentions of rests at reference 3, despite it being only three years ago.

Beam now cleaned up and stored on top of the balancing beams, on the floor of the garage. Bound to come in useful one day. The beams noticed at, for example, the end of reference 4. Beams which I would not think of carrying, even one at a time, even from the much nearer Travis Perkins. Delivery every time!

Rewarded later on with beef with dumplings. Six for me (four of which are shown above), four for her. Plus the traditional accompaniments. Very good it all was too.

PS: a snippet from the MIT Technology review, about water problems in the US, following that about water problems in Russia at reference 5: '... The United States is, in fact, the largest exporter of water on earth, according to Robert Glennon, a law professor at the University of Arizona and one of the country’s leading experts on water policy. Glennon calculated that during a recent severe drought, farmers in the American West [generally a rather dry place, with a lot of its water being pumped from deep wells] used more than a hundred billion gallons of water to grow alfalfa that was then shipped mostly to China...'.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/01/trolley-464.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/01/beam-one.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/02/new-wheeze.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/08/a-festival-of-pork.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/01/watery-projects.html.

Reference 6: The US exports too much of its most valuable resource: At a time of record droughts, American farmers are in effect sending water around the world in food and clothing exports. The lack of regulations is to blame - Alok Jha, MIT Technology Review - 2021.