Chez Piddens. The marital bed. A frosty morning.
Aieeee! Brrrr!
Aaaagh! Wes! Shut up!
What? Oh. Brrr! It’s freezing. I had a terrible nightmare.
I don’t want to hear about it, Wes.
So, I was in this servo paying for fuel and feeling peckish.
I don’t want to hear it.
So, I checked out the selection in the ice cream freezer.
(Alice blocks ears) La la la!
There was one called a Maxbond, and I thought, ‘a glue ice cream: something different’. But then I realised it said Maxibon.
Am I really hearing this?
Maxibon Waffle with Blueberry. That suggested tasty eatin’. They say blueberries are chocka with antioxidants, but frankly, is that really important? I mean how many people have accidents with oxen nowadays?
Wes, you are a pillock of the community and my eternal nightmare.
So, I reach down to grab one, but I fall in, and pretty soon I turn into a block of ice.
Get your freezing toes off my leg!
So, the freezer floats off, and pretty soon me and the Maxibons are in the Southern Ocean.
(Alice chants) Don’t ask don’t ask don’t ask… Oh, ok, how do you know it was the Southern Ocean?
Easy. All the pink Humpback Whales, one of whom was Sting. Interestingly, he was able to stay submerged for the longest time.
Oh, here we go!
When I remarked upon it he just said, ‘Wes, man, I’ve been down so long, bein’ down don’t bother me’.
Let me out of here, Wes! You’ve gone madder than Frenchy Fargas. No, wait. You were a block of ice. How could you possibly converse with the Sting whale?
He understood French.
What?
Anyway, I was so busy with Sting that I didn’t notice the iceberg until too late. I screamed ‘Iceberg!’ and Sting screamed, ‘Roxanne!’ There was a gargantuan crunch. I woke up next to you. Freezing.
(silence)
Wes…
Brrr! Give me some of that blanket.
You know how you claim that if your dreams aren’t completely mental, then you’re not completely sane?
Yep.
You are definitely the exception that proves the rule.
Aw thanks. Wait…
Get up. It’s late.
Brrr! I think I’ll get dressed in bed.
That’s just disgusting.
Why? I often get undressed in bed. You too.
Stop your nasty commentary right now!
Well, I suppose I oughta see if I can fix the tractor.
You promised to clean the bathroom grout today.
Glow Plug Emergency, Allie.
What?
What’s the breaking strength of sash cord?
Who cares?
We’re high up on a roof rigging up ladders at this RFS training course a few years back, and this instructor asks us, ‘What’s the breaking strength of sash cord?’ Well, we all venture guesses, and then he says, ‘Nobody knows’.
So, what?
‘Nobody knows.’ It stuck with me.
That’s your problem.
But, Allie, where is the glow plug on a Fendt Farmer 306 LSA?
Who gives a flying ferret?
Nobody knows.
Rubbish.
Nobody knows. I’ve been trying to find it for years. The workshop manual is in German. The photos are fuzzy B&W and look like they were taken with a Changi POW’s pinhole camera. It says if I remove 37 pipes and hoses I’ll find the ‘glaufahrtenreiterpluggen’.
Well, there you go.
I did. It wasn’t there.
Get on Google.
I did. Went on all the farm machinery chat sites. Nobody knows.
Stuff and nonsense.
It’s true. The curse of Fendt tractors is their strength and endurance. Nothing ever goes wrong with them. Nobody’s ever fixed one because they last forever.
What?
I’m considered a world authority in some quarters of the chatnet because I’ve actually fixed something on a Fendt.
Well that’s a turkey feather in your Davy Crockett cap.
Nope, it’s wafer-slim consolation. Nobody knows where to find the glow plug.
Rubbish! You’ve only had a man look.
I started looking back in 2017, Allie.
I’m sick of your jive talk and bald assertion. Get up right now and take me down to that greasy, smelly, dieselly, muddy thing and let me take a proper lady look. There’s got to be wires and pipes leading to the joy plug or whatever.
Hah!
What?
We shall see.
Three hours later. Allie does her (greasy) rag.
Eeeugh! Look at me. Grease, oil, rat droppings, blood. That thing is a mechanical sewer!
So, Alice Maree Piddens, where is the glow plug on a 1993 Fendt Farmer 306 LSA tractor?
I’ve got to clean the shower.
Where is it, Allie?
Don’t you ever hose down that tractor?
Where is the glow plug, Allie?
I… erm…
Where?
Ok ok ok, nobody knows.
A lesson to us all.
Bullgoose
and then