Hig Tech and Low Tech

My practical skills are improving all the time. So are my improvisation skills - think 'MacGyver' improvising, not 'standing in front of a brick wall telling jokes' improvising. I can fix pretty much anything around here with a leatherman, which is like a pair of pliers married to a swiss army knife. I have to improvise because stuff breaks all the time and we haven't got much of a tool kit. But there is such a feeling of success when it works, which is surprisingly more often than you would think.

I would like to say that this is because I'm technically gifted. It's not. It's because our life is, for the most part, low-tech. Relatively speaking. We have electricity and central heating. I have a car, a mobile phone, a refrigerator. I have a computer and the interweb. We're not exactly living off the grid here.

But we are trying to keep it simple. Old machines, reconditioned appliances, basic technology (is that an oxymoron?) that can be repaired. I think it's an appropriate choice for our lifestyle because we haven't got time to be fiddling with complex things. There's only two of us. So much time is lost when machines break down. Complicated machines have more parts to break down and are less easy to fix with, say, baler twine or a limited knowledge of electronics.

Mike acquired an old microscope from a lab at Cambridge University (I didn't ask how). It needed a domestic plug fitted so we could use it at home, for looking at microorganisms causing diseases in the pheasants. I googled a wiring diagram, cannabalised a plug from a broken lamp, and used my leatherman to strip the wires and put on the new plug:

Caution: Genius at Work

I couldn't have felt more MacGyver-y if I was fixing it with a ballpoint pen, a chewing gum wrapper and a piece of string (Actually I think he used that combo to effect a jailbreak, not fix a microscope). I plugged it in and there was a godawful BANG which blew the bulb and tripped the fuse.

That never happens to MacGyver.

A neighbor who happens to design complex electrical systems for a living was happy to take a look at it for us. Seems my re-wiring was spot-on (WooHOO!) but there was only a 6 volt bulb in it. And I plugged it into a 240 volt socket (D'OH!). Lesson learned.

On a daily basis I depend on the very low-tech. For example, the weather pinecone -

Along with the outdoor min/max thermometer, the pinecone makes up my "weather station". When the pinecone is open, as in the picture, we can expect dry weather. When the scales on the pinecone are shut tight, rain is coming. It doesn't matter what the TV says, or BBC weather on-line, my pinecone is never wrong. They've been predicting rain for the last two days. My pinecone stayed open so I planned outdoor chores. Not a drop of rain.

The secret of the pinecone was taught to me by Gilbert, the octagenarian farmer I lived next door to in rural France. Neither of us spoke the other's language, but between the ten French words I knew and some elaborate mime (wasn't Marcel Marceau French?), Gilbert explained the concept of the pinecone.

He also taught me to cut rose branches to a point and put them in mole holes. The point would 'pique le taupe' - poke the mole in his sensitive nose - and deter him from making mounds in my already pathetic looking vegetable patch. I figured you don't get to 80 without learning a few things so I took his word on both weather prediction and mole control. Gilbert was also missing some fingers on both hands, so he likely learned some things himself the hard way. Though he never could learn my name and called me Janette for as long as I knew him. It sounded so much more glamorous than Jennifer that I prefered it anyway.

So we have the technical and the low-tech, but we also have just pure ignorance. We've owned our truck for nearly two years now. Mike had a puncture and the guys down at the garage chaged it for him. When they put the back seat down to get the tire iron Mike took the opportunity to ask them what that silver box was behind the seat. "Mike, That's your CD player. You can put 6 CDs in it and play it through your radio. Didn't you know you had that?"

Neither of us did. Neither of us had ever seen a CD car changer box thing before. Between us we don't even own 6 CDs. I have exactly one CD: John Denver's Greatest Hits (Thanks Seester!). That's the upgrade from the eight-track tape version we listened to as kids.

But I did get one of those cassette tapes that you can plug your iPod into so it plays in the car. I bought Mike one too, for his work truck. He gives me his iPod shuffle when it "stops working" (ie needs recharging) or with the request "Can you put AC/DC songs on it for me?". Of course I can, I totally know how to do that. If only I could do that with just a ballpoint pen, a chewing gum wrapper and a piece of string - THAT would be something!