leathery elbows

If my cousin Simon reads this it would be interesting to know which beheebies him up the most - the simple presence of a mudguard or the fact that it's now a mudguard held on by a splinted extra section (formed from some of the spare bit sawn off in order to get it to fit) held together with a pair of bolts in addition to the improved under-rack mounting, now consisting of two tap washers and two 1"-diameter repair washers in addition to the two angle brackets and the fixing intended for attaching a light to the front fork crown. Slightly overdoing the cobbles on the way home yesterday evening begat a rattling which sounded very much like the various bolts and washers which should have been holding the (recently-snapped) forward tip of the rear mudguard rattling against the light bracket. Fortunately I already had sufficient washers and a stock of variously-sized bolts and Nylock nuts as well as the sawn-off bit of spare mudguard to enable it to be fixed without further bothering a hardware shop.