Saturday - Part 1
It was late morning before I was able to get some etch primer on the bottom corner of the bonnet on the driver's side.
Plus the inside edges of the body shell extension.
Then my day took an unexpected turn, which was quite sad really.
So if want to stick to more up beat car building, ignore the following and page down to the next photo…
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Perspective:
As I was starting to apply some normal body filler I could hear someone loudly banging on a front door down the street.
I looked up and saw it was an old lady who lives on the street at her next door neighbours' house.
So I thought nothing of it and carried on with the filler, but the banging continued and I figured her neighbours must be out.
However, for whatever reason, at this point I had stopped what I was doing to see if everything was OK.
Just as I did, I could faintly hear the old lady said "Can somebody help me please?".
F***!
So I dropped everything and ran down the road to help, fearing her husband might have fallen (or worse).
She then lead me into the house where I could smell smoke and now thought there might be a fire.
Turns out the poor lady has dementia and instead of turning on the grill, she had switched on a cooking ring by mistake.
Thankfully she had managed to turn everything off but she was clearly both confused and distressed.
Her husband was out and she was very worried that he was going to find out what had happened.
As I got the impression that she wasn't supposed to use the cooker unsupervised.
She also said she was not allow to leave the house by herself, which she had clearly done looking for help.
So I tried to reassure her that she did the right thing getting help and that we all make mistakes.
I then quickly nipped back to my own own house to tell my wife what was going on before returning.
It was hard work trying to talk her into just sitting down to recover and she didn't want a cup of tea or even a glass of water.
I even offered her the chance to come and stay at my house until her husband returned, or I'd wait with her in her house.
But either of the these options would mean that the husband would know something had happened and she didn't want that.
Eventually I was able to convince her that I wouldn't tell him and the cooker ring was now cold, so there was also no "evidence".
This seemed to bring her some comfort and she was now calmer and happy for me to leave her to it.
Clearly this couple are only
just getting by with the problems they have and need proper help.
So I will keep an eye out for the husband and tell him what happened, as there is clearly a real fire risk.
Depending on his reaction, I might see if there is anything else I can do to help them out a bit.
As, coincidently, I used to look after their neighbour's garden, on the other side of their "semi" over 10 years ago.
As my wife was friendly with the lady who lived there when our children were very small.
Back then, this couple's garden was immaculate and they were happy to see me mowing their neighbour's lawn.
But today, I could see that their garden is now completely over grown, so things have declined over time.
Their neighbour passed away last year, but she did get proper home help in the end to help her around the house & garden.
Anyway, this lady is only a few years older than my own mum, who is also in her 80s, but is, thankfully, as fit as a fiddle. <
Touch Wood>
It really brought home the fact that you should always count your blessings, as things can always be worse.
It certainly puts all my whinging and moaning about the less than perfect shape of my wheel arches into perspective.
Apologies for sharing this in the middle of my build thread, but this whole episode has troubled me for most of the day.
At least writing it all down helps me a little bit, so I'll now return to a normal build update.
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Normal body filler was added to:
The bottom corner of the bonnet on the passenger side.
Although I didn't get to finish off the horizontal panel on the driver's side.
End of Part 1…