My mother’s neighbour is wonderfully gifted manually. His father was a chimney sweep and he is a trained carpenter. He renovated his huge house himself. Although he didn’t really know the occupation, he taught himself from books. Everything didn‘t always run without problems and at the first attempt, but the results speak for themselves and the costs were not unreasonable, as he is accustomed to say.

With increasing age and more and more technology it has become ever more demanding on him, but he accepts the challenges and faces them as resolutely as he has done when faced with anything he has not yet met. If the majority of mankind were like him, we would have been living on the moon long ago.

Many years ago, when he installed a proper WC in his house in the bathroom, (before that one had to cross the courtyard to a little wooden hut – dry toilets they were called in the trade, a real nightmare especially in winter), he also installed a cesspit with a tank. Because even today there is no sewage system in the village, one has to order a car to empty the pit. At some point the neighbour noticed that the pit was leaking and decided to seal it himself. First the pit had to be examined. The neighbour caused an uproar in the nearby barracks, because he had persuaded the cook working there to bring him a highly sensitive gas mask so that he could protect himself against the fumes in the pit.

The cook was caught in a random check at the gate and was punished. Whether for attempted theft or stupidity, I don’t know. In true James Bond manner, the neighbour then constructed a gas mask himself with a pipe, which was intended to ensure a constant flow of fresh air and safeguard him from asphyxiation. Thank God he informed his neighbour, who could save him if the construction did not work.

My mother’s neighbour has long passed retirement age, but his improvement drive is unbroken, which is also demonstrated by the most recent story from the neighbour’s cesspit. The waste pit was renovated and a biological filter installed, in fact a small sewage plant. As so often in life, it did not work properly and as the neighbour had installed everything himself, he also wanted to rectify it himself. He shoved his upper body into the oval access pipe, only a few minutes later to discover that he could move neither forward nor backwards. Neighbours tried to pull him out, and broke two of his ribs in the process. He had refused to call the fire brigade (that costs money), cut his clothes off his upper body and then succeeded in getting out with two broken ribs.

I find his will and fighting spirit impressive and look forward to his next adventure.

 

Image source: Wolfgang Teuber / pixelio.de