I wrote the following email to my dad yesterday afternoon. I think it tells quite a cool tale, so I thought I’ddd re-post it here:

Dear dad. I think I better tell you this because I know you will want to be told. On Monday going up Charlton church lane – a steep hill not far from here – my chair broke. The link between the chassis (purple bit) and the box with the motors and batteries had worn away: under the seat there is a purple tube that goes across, and is connected to the motor at two points. These had apparently rusted so that the front of the battery box was now much lower than it should have been and my chair was tilted forward. However, this afternoon chopper and I managed to get it fixed: believe it or not Charlton still has a village forge, and the guy there happily re-welded the broken connections. Its not perfect but it will hold.

I’ll try to be on skype later if you want to talk

Love matt xx

The forge was awesome, an must have been there centuries. The guy kindly did it there and then, and, once I had chance to get down on the floor to look at his work, I realised the welds were much stronger than I first thought —- that thing won’t break again in a month of sundays. He refused to let us pay him anything, too, so I bought him a small bottle of JD. God I love this crazy little village within a city. However, I must apologise to my parents for not getting on to skype last night: something else came up, and Chopper needed my help, but I’ll leave that for another entry.