When is a gadget not a gadget?

It is difficult to work up very much enthusiasm while waiting for the delayed arrival of a new cordless vacuum cleaner.  Admittedly this machine is one purchased some time ago from one of the many start-up companies to whose blandishments I too frequently fall victim, but still as a more domestic version of Gertrude Stein might have said, “A Hoover, is a Hoover, is a Hoover” and, no matter how necessary and useful it might be, it just sucks air – and dust of course.  And furthermore, unlike dear old ‘Moppy’ in the living room, the new purchase actually needs a human to direct it.  Constantly.  So, it consequently does not have the robotic elan of the squat worker downstairs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our present Hoover hoover only works properly when the head is at an acute angle to the body of the machine – which suggests to me that there is a wonky contact somewhere inside the thing.  As I have zero intention of removing the ‘do not remove’ panels to get to the electronic workings we have the ‘repair or replacement’ quandary that I have (or rather will have) solved by doing both.  The new machine is somewhere in Catalonia in the back of a van and the old machine will go to the frankly unsatisfactory domestic electricals shop that made such a bad and dishonest attempt to repair my electric shaver.

Why, I hear you ask, if the place was so unsatisfactory, will you return?  And the reply is based on a mixture of good economic sense and touching faith in humanity.  As the old hoover is still technically working, I trust that the rep<air will be something absurdly simple and cheap.  Touching, isn’t it?  And you never know, for once my naivety may be justified and even rewarded!

 

Even though I am typing this outside on the third-floor terrace in shorts and T-shirt, I have to admit that summer is over.  There are ‘rites of passage’ that tell you these things.  The official change of season from Summer to Autumn is when the chiringuitos (the temporary café structures that are built on the actual sand of the beach) begin to be taken down.

It was a sorry sight as I cycled down the length of the paseo is see various heavy-duty machines carting panels, tables and chairs and kitchen equipment back to the waiting lorries on the street.

They are absurdly expensive places and they will be no loss to us as we never use them, but to see them disappear makes the length of the beach look somewhat desolate and gives us fair warning of the colder months ahead.

There is a common misapprehension among my British friends that the seasons as they undergo them in Wales, for example, do not bear any relationship to the lived experience of seaside Catalans and others.  May I reassure them that we do have seasons, the only difference is that we do not usually experience all four of them on a single day!

We have Winter.  Admittedly it is not as cold as in the UK, but we do have recourse to duvets and central heating – though not generally in what the British call their Spring and Summer!

Catalans have firm faith in the calendar: if the date suggests it is autumn or winter, then they dress accordingly and to hell with the information that a thermometer gives.  I, on the other hand, have successfully delayed changing my shorts for jeans throughout an entire year.  This staunch approach to truncated clothing led one of my Catalan friends to say, “When I see your legs, I shiver!”  Which I now realise is capable of having other interpretations than wonderment at my resilience to the cold!

 

In spite of my real misgivings about the determination of the delivery company to get my package to me, SEUR delivered the cordless vacuum cleaner within five minutes of the start of their projected time for a ‘second’ delivery.

The hoover is actually from a Bristol based company and, after being assembled it looks impressive.  The next few days will tell if it is practical and whether it was worth the wait for it to get from a design idea to its physical presence in my home via a start-up platform.  I am trying to be enthusiastic, but hoovers are like fridges: essential but essentially unexciting – you just want them to last so you don’t spend any more on them for the next decade or so!

Roll on more interesting purchases, which I do actually have in the pipeline.  After all, what else is there to do in the restricted times in which we live than indulge in a little light retail therapy!