All's well that ends well

Because of the 'Big Freeze' sweeping across Europe, my retightening appointment on 7 January 2010 again didn’t happen. The eurostar between Paris and London experienced delays and cancellations. On top of that I caught a bad cold – what a stroke of bad luck on my part. But anyway, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

My locks hadn’t been retightened in two and half months and they needed urgent attention or else they’d start breaking. In desperation I called Marie and she advised me on how to go about retightening. (Luckily I had already ordered the locking tool but the few times I had used it, I married locks together and it was a nightmare separating them -- so I’d decided not to use it until I got trained.) I also called Njeri and Mugure to see if they could help me out but unfortunately their weekend was already taken. Njeri’s locking pattern’s the same as mine so she also briefed me on what to do. But it wasn’t easy taking all the advice over the phone and visualizing, but in the end I got it.

So after I was clear on what I was supposed to do, I sat down in front of the telly with my diagram and the tiny locking tool that would save my locks. It was a huge challenge but I had to do it so I began retightening the morning of Thursday 7 January. I wanted to get it right so I took my time but even then, I found it quite difficult to avoid not merging locks. It was the sense of touch at work with the hands and fingers at work without the eyes and that wasn’t easy. By the end of the day I’d done a quarter of my head and it wasn’t bad.

The next day, Friday 8 January, I got up early and continued. I locked and locked and took brief breaks in between – my arms ached, but that was ok, coz I was determined. I finally finished early this morning at 00:13am. I honestly think I did pretty good job considering it was my first attempt. I did make a mess of two locks in fronts which have knots at the roots and a few boo boos here and there. I’d give myself 70 out of 100.

Next time I see Marie, she’ll take me through the retightening technique and thereafter I’ll start self maintaining. Because of what I’ve gone through, I’d advise all those sisters in Paris that wish to microlock/sisterlock across the channel tunnel to be wary of the various impediments that can come your way such as austere weather conditions that can bring everything to a halt. Have a back up plan and purchase the locking tool well in advance. Am glad am out of the woods. And really, really, where there’s a will, there’s always a way and sometime when you think you can’t you actually.