(no subject)

I was intending to go out this evening on my old bike, which I've continued to keep as a spare. I managed for the first time in ages to inflate both tyres without trashing either of them; then thought I'd better wobble the derailleur, which is loosely held in place with a nut, the screw thread that should have secured it having completely worn through, and it came off. Cue quarter of an hour, at least, trying to reattach it. To be honest, I can't figure out how I managed to do it before.

Maybe the time's finally come, now my emotional connection to it has waned, and it's no longer rankling that I recently spent a lot of money on it, to finally get rid of it, and possibly get a cheap secondhand bike as a replacement spare for taking out on occasions where I wouldn't want to leave my good bike street-exposed.

Bah!

I managed to get a couple of drops of oily food on my suede waistcoat whilst I was in Israel. At first this seemed the least of my troubles—that Shabbos lunch, I was wearing only my waistcoat on my top half, because the person sitting next to me had bit into a cherry and spattered cherry juice all over my shirt (which was now wet, having been washed) and my trousers (which I drew the line at taking off!); but the stains came off my other garments okay.

I finally got around to taking my waistcoat in to the dry cleaners the other day. Despite being labelled specialists in suede and leather, they said they'd have to send it off for treatment, being pigskin suede: if they did it there it would lose a lot of its lustre; it would have to be done properly and reoiled and everything... and it would cost me £25. Which is several times the amount livredor spent on it in the first place. But maybe I need to bite the bullet and do it; it's been accumulating a greyish tinge around its lower rim for the last while, and until I get it done I can't wear the bow tie that goes with it either. (Not unless I choose to wear it anyway; the stain isn't very noticeable, particularly if I brush the suede in the "wrong" direction.)

A quick google shows a number of techniques suggested for cleaning suede; but I'm not confident if I try them out, I might not wreck the garment. Probably this is something best left to the professionals.