Best Stile in Sedbergh
With Kerry & Darwin away down south I did some ‘Man Work’.
My first hurdle was speaking to a Cumbrian Man to order some fencing bits. It’s always a bit daunting talking to proper tradesmen. I’m OK with computers and that, and I can handle myself very well in a conversation about computers and the security of such items, but when it comes to trade things that’s a different matter. So anticipating this the night before I went and measured the fence that was already present in the field. Luckily I had removed a fence stake at the weekend and measured this to be 1800mm long and approximately 100mm wide. Sorted. The fence was 1000mm high and I needed about 20m of it. I also needed some staples and some wire for the top of the fence.
Where could it go wrong?
I picked up the phone and donned my finest workman tone choosing to start the conversation with a very Cumbrian “Na then”.
“Am after 20 or so fencing stakes” I said putting on an over exaggerated Lancashire accent.
“Round or square?” he asked. Sh*t! He’s trying to catch me out all ready with a question I hadn’t anticipated. Luckily I readily knew the answer.
“Round”. I thought at this point I should have said “Round, yer tw*t”, to add a bit of banter but I thought better of it.
“How big?” he asked.
Big? Jesus, that’s a bit non-specific isn’t it? What if he was flip reversing me and wanted to know the mass of the object?
“Er”, Sh*t, I had stalled a little! “180cm long and about 100mm wide”.
“Eh?” he grunted, “what’s that in old money?”
O my God. How can there still be people alive who can’t understand the metric system? However, my mistake, I should have known that all tradesmen deal in feet and inches. Note to self: Always deal in feet and inches then you can play the “Eh? What’s that in old money” card.
Thinking quickly I said, “About 6 foot long”.
“Well it’s either 5’ 6” or 7 foot” he said.
Of course it is!
“5’ 6” then” I ordered.
“We’ve got em in 3 to 4 inch?”
I said ‘OK’ but didn’t quite know what I was saying OK to.
Using a 3x conversion rate I quickly translated 20m to 60 foot. “I’m also after about 60’ of wire fencing, 3 foot high”.
“What type of fencing?” he asked.
He had me, I was crushed! I had failed the interrogation phase. I thought it would be better to confess at this time. “To be honest, I don’t know. I’m OK with computers but I’ve never done this thing before. I know it’s made of galvanised metal and has square holes in it.”
“Sheep netting” he said. “It comes in 50m rolls”.
O, so now he knows metric! On a separate note I asked myself if we’ll ever get rid of imperial measurements. I asked a colleague to tell me how high he was in cm and he didn’t know. I then asked him to estimate the width of his desk and he said 5 foot. When I asked him to estimate the size of the room he said 5 metres! So I conclude that imperial measurements are here to stay for any length between the average size of a penis and the maximum height of a human (Bawdy laugh knowing full well that Kerry will butt in and say 2 inches!)
“I’m also after some staples” I said.
“Some what?” he quizzed.
“Some staples to keep the fence attached to the stakes” I detailed.
“O, stapples” (rhymes with apples apparently). “I’ll send a couple of keg down”.
Thinking that I was going to get sent 2 beer kegs of staples I agreed anyway. As he was going to deliver the goods I offered to give him my postcode. “No point” he said. “I don’t have one of them fancy SatMaps, just describe where you live”.
The goods did turn up when agreed and I spent the whole of Saturday and part of Sunday erecting the fence and making a stile. It isn’t the greatest but it definitely does the job and an old man told me that it was the best stile in Sedbergh.
My body now feels like it’s been flogged within 25mm of its life!
My first hurdle was speaking to a Cumbrian Man to order some fencing bits. It’s always a bit daunting talking to proper tradesmen. I’m OK with computers and that, and I can handle myself very well in a conversation about computers and the security of such items, but when it comes to trade things that’s a different matter. So anticipating this the night before I went and measured the fence that was already present in the field. Luckily I had removed a fence stake at the weekend and measured this to be 1800mm long and approximately 100mm wide. Sorted. The fence was 1000mm high and I needed about 20m of it. I also needed some staples and some wire for the top of the fence.
Where could it go wrong?
I picked up the phone and donned my finest workman tone choosing to start the conversation with a very Cumbrian “Na then”.
“Am after 20 or so fencing stakes” I said putting on an over exaggerated Lancashire accent.
“Round or square?” he asked. Sh*t! He’s trying to catch me out all ready with a question I hadn’t anticipated. Luckily I readily knew the answer.
“Round”. I thought at this point I should have said “Round, yer tw*t”, to add a bit of banter but I thought better of it.
“How big?” he asked.
Big? Jesus, that’s a bit non-specific isn’t it? What if he was flip reversing me and wanted to know the mass of the object?
“Er”, Sh*t, I had stalled a little! “180cm long and about 100mm wide”.
“Eh?” he grunted, “what’s that in old money?”
O my God. How can there still be people alive who can’t understand the metric system? However, my mistake, I should have known that all tradesmen deal in feet and inches. Note to self: Always deal in feet and inches then you can play the “Eh? What’s that in old money” card.
Thinking quickly I said, “About 6 foot long”.
“Well it’s either 5’ 6” or 7 foot” he said.
Of course it is!
“5’ 6” then” I ordered.
“We’ve got em in 3 to 4 inch?”
I said ‘OK’ but didn’t quite know what I was saying OK to.
Using a 3x conversion rate I quickly translated 20m to 60 foot. “I’m also after about 60’ of wire fencing, 3 foot high”.
“What type of fencing?” he asked.
He had me, I was crushed! I had failed the interrogation phase. I thought it would be better to confess at this time. “To be honest, I don’t know. I’m OK with computers but I’ve never done this thing before. I know it’s made of galvanised metal and has square holes in it.”
“Sheep netting” he said. “It comes in 50m rolls”.
O, so now he knows metric! On a separate note I asked myself if we’ll ever get rid of imperial measurements. I asked a colleague to tell me how high he was in cm and he didn’t know. I then asked him to estimate the width of his desk and he said 5 foot. When I asked him to estimate the size of the room he said 5 metres! So I conclude that imperial measurements are here to stay for any length between the average size of a penis and the maximum height of a human (Bawdy laugh knowing full well that Kerry will butt in and say 2 inches!)
“I’m also after some staples” I said.
“Some what?” he quizzed.
“Some staples to keep the fence attached to the stakes” I detailed.
“O, stapples” (rhymes with apples apparently). “I’ll send a couple of keg down”.
Thinking that I was going to get sent 2 beer kegs of staples I agreed anyway. As he was going to deliver the goods I offered to give him my postcode. “No point” he said. “I don’t have one of them fancy SatMaps, just describe where you live”.
The goods did turn up when agreed and I spent the whole of Saturday and part of Sunday erecting the fence and making a stile. It isn’t the greatest but it definitely does the job and an old man told me that it was the best stile in Sedbergh.
My body now feels like it’s been flogged within 25mm of its life!
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