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igenlodeI finally got round to taking some tools to the seized barrel adjuster on my back brake. It has been jammed ever since the brakes were over-enthusiastically tightened up during a Dr Bike session last year, although I didn't discover this for some months until the brake blocks began to wear down and I wanted to adjust the pull. Of course the adjusters can't be tightened indefinitely, because -- apart from the fact that they run out of screw, which is what the mechanic did during the Dr Bike: screwed them all the way up again and then pulled the brake cable physically through the fixture to create the possibility of further tightening by subsequently turning the adjuster -- the rubber brake blocks do wear out.. I haven't had them replaced for well over a year now :-(
But I had a heavy load of shopping in my panniers this morning and was very conscious that my back brake was really having very little effect, so I finally got round to getting the tools out this afternoon. Once I actually got down to it, freeing the adjuster turned out to be not merely a five-minute job but literally a five-second job; I didn't need the adjustable spanner, let alone the other adjustable spanner that I no longer have, but simply a pair of pliers to grip the barrel and give me that little bit of extra leverage when turning it.
I still can't manage to adjust that one manually even after unjamming it, so will have to get the pliers out again if and when it needs taking up a bit further. Maybe it could use some penetrating oil.
Current odometer reading 2574.5 -- a hundred and forty-six miles since February, although that figure is undubitably under-recorded; the cycle computer has been malfunctioning frequently, and I only know about it when I look down to find that it is registering nothing at all. Some of my regular journeys have only displayed about half the known mileage.
Another surprisingly successful recipe: pasta with sausagemeat and carrots. Not a wartime carrot-promoting recipe this time (the 1940s and even 1960s attitude to pasta was 'this is an outlandish substance and here is the one recipe you can make with it'), but the lavishly entitled Maccheroni con la salsiccia e le carote from my slender Sainsbury's cookbook of "Pasta Italian Style". I didn't have any macaroni, so it was just spaghetti :-p I was celebrating having acquired both some new packets of spaghetti, with which I am now very well furnished for the immediate future, and some fresh sausages from a snack van that happened to do a sideline in take-it-home-and-cook-it-yourself food as well as ready-grilled meals.
As promised in the cookbook, "the grated carrots combine with the [skinned] sausage to form an unexpectedly good sauce which is thick and satisfying" -- and doesn't taste of carrot! Flavoured with home-grown sage and thyme, it was very appetising, as well as being a good way to get two meals out of a single sausage. With both carrot and tomatoes in, however, the sauce came out quite shockingly orange :-p
But I had a heavy load of shopping in my panniers this morning and was very conscious that my back brake was really having very little effect, so I finally got round to getting the tools out this afternoon. Once I actually got down to it, freeing the adjuster turned out to be not merely a five-minute job but literally a five-second job; I didn't need the adjustable spanner, let alone the other adjustable spanner that I no longer have, but simply a pair of pliers to grip the barrel and give me that little bit of extra leverage when turning it.
I still can't manage to adjust that one manually even after unjamming it, so will have to get the pliers out again if and when it needs taking up a bit further. Maybe it could use some penetrating oil.
Current odometer reading 2574.5 -- a hundred and forty-six miles since February, although that figure is undubitably under-recorded; the cycle computer has been malfunctioning frequently, and I only know about it when I look down to find that it is registering nothing at all. Some of my regular journeys have only displayed about half the known mileage.
Another surprisingly successful recipe: pasta with sausagemeat and carrots. Not a wartime carrot-promoting recipe this time (the 1940s and even 1960s attitude to pasta was 'this is an outlandish substance and here is the one recipe you can make with it'), but the lavishly entitled Maccheroni con la salsiccia e le carote from my slender Sainsbury's cookbook of "Pasta Italian Style". I didn't have any macaroni, so it was just spaghetti :-p I was celebrating having acquired both some new packets of spaghetti, with which I am now very well furnished for the immediate future, and some fresh sausages from a snack van that happened to do a sideline in take-it-home-and-cook-it-yourself food as well as ready-grilled meals.
As promised in the cookbook, "the grated carrots combine with the [skinned] sausage to form an unexpectedly good sauce which is thick and satisfying" -- and doesn't taste of carrot! Flavoured with home-grown sage and thyme, it was very appetising, as well as being a good way to get two meals out of a single sausage. With both carrot and tomatoes in, however, the sauce came out quite shockingly orange :-p
no subject
Date: 2021-04-26 06:57 am (UTC)Basically, sausages, onions, tin of baked beans and a tin of tomatoes (and a few herbs for good luck if you felt like it.) Very tasty and great for a family.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-26 09:14 am (UTC)I've never come across the idea of making a ragu-type pasta sauce out of grated carrots flavoured with crumbled sausagemeat before, though, although I think my wartime book does have at least one recipe for disembowelling your sausage, mixing it together with oatmeal and vegetables, and rolling the bulked-out mixture up again into a larger number of sausages before frying them ;-)