Small victories to put a spring in my weekend step

THOUGH I didn't know it at the time, I abandoned all hope of career progression by moving to Cornwall 20-odd years ago, and so I have to find satisfaction and fulfilment elsewhere. These sensations might be transient and arbitrary, but few of us are lucky enough to have a job which offers any more substantial gratification; we only think what we happen to do for a living is important and valuable because we get paid for it, when actually things done for nothing but love of others or the simple pleasure of the task itself are far more socially and emotionally significant: and I got lucky at the weekend with not one but two small victories which put a spring in my step right through until 8.59am on Monday.

- Phil Wisdom

On the first Saturday of the month I and other volunteers pitch up at the Repair Café at Lostwithiel Community Centre, ready to help anyone with a possession in need of some TLC. Though these have ranged from wobbly chairs, homicidal exercise machines and smashed statuettes to a one-stringed violin made by the client’s ancestor, which I had the privilege of restringing and playing for the first time in decades, most are small electrical items and - I’m sure Sir James won't mind me saying this - roughly half of these are made by Dyson. On Saturday one of the great man’s vacuum cleaners presented me with what Sherlock Holmes would have called a three-pipe problem. The motor stuttered, and a light flashed indicating a blocked filter, but they all ap