MetaChat - I wish I'd known about this years ago.

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05 December 2010

I wish I'd known about this years ago. →[More:]
Living by a forest, and with a huge oak tree in next door's back yard, my garden (which is all patio) gets covered with leaves.

I have one of these garden vacs, which does the job of sucking up and shredding the leaves, but with an over-the-shoulder strap it is SO heavy, even with no leaves in it.

It got to the point where, after clearing the leaves (which I have to do twice a week during the autumn, or I get buried in a drift of leaves), I'd be in so much back and shoulder pain that even a red-hot jet spray shower couldn't help. So I decided to ditch the Flymo and invest in a wheeled garden vac instead. They are really expensive though, and I was weighing up whether I could justify spending £130 or whether I should just suck up the back pain.

After last weekend, when I could barely move after clearing the leaves, I decided to bite the bullet and buy the new vacuum. I searched on Amazon to see if there was a better price and was stunned to see this.

I ordered it, it arrived the next day, and I fitted it and used it today. Instead of having to haul the leaf vac around on a shoulder strap, I could wheel it around with one hand. Now the snow has thawed, the leaves were wet, and heavier than usual, but ... no backache. No. Back. Ache. Oh, joy.

Best nine quid I've ever spent, seriously. Why the fuck Flymo don't fit this as standard I have no idea. I've never even seen it in Homebase, B&Q, etc.

What've you bought recently that you wish you'd known about/bought years ago?

post by: Senyar at: 06:22 | 2 comments

Wireless headphones. I always hated having to be less than 3 feet from my headphone jack in order to listen to movies/TV shows on my computer. I got a pair for myself as a holiday present and they've been completely awesome.

posted by sperose 05 December | 12:12

I got a wireless trackball this week and it's wooooonderful. I move around with my laptop all day long trying to keep from getting stiff, and the cord used to catch on everything no matter how I tried to collect it up before picking it up. Also, the new one actually works (the sensor under the left mouse button was going) which is a delight.

I borrowed a sah-weet 8" battery-powered chainsaw and it's just the perfect thing for those trees/branches that are too big for loppers, but really don't justify a full-size chainsaw. I'm going to get one of my own soon. It's so, so easy to maneuver.

A four-wheeled dump cart is worlds away better than a wheelbarrow for mucking stalls. Really. Seriously. Wow.

I put in a hanging pot rack because it was hurting my back to bend over to put pots away under the counter. I ended up just leaving them on the stovetop all the time. This is also much delightful. I can put pots away easily and they actually get put away.

I need a better one, but a headset for my landline is allowing me to have conversations that last more than a couple of minutes again. I'm not sure what I'm doing, but I seem to cock my head to the side somehow when I talk on the phone, and it was giving me horrible headaches no matter how I tried to keep from doing it. But now we have a cordless phone with a jack, and a headset that plugs into that, and I can actually talk on the phone again.

Unfortunately, I have a tiny head and none of the headsets I can find are small enough, but I put padding on this one and it will do.

Sometimes it's absolutely fantastic to have the right tool for the job.

posted by galadriel 05 December | 20:15

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