ingenuity

This looks like one of those contest-photographs: identify the common household object ... Only in fact it's an uncommon household object, the product of great ingenuity ... Alice has a probably totally unfounded confidence in my ability to solve practical problems, based, she often claims, on the fact that I'm an Engineer's Daughter.   This didn't ensure that I could quite re-fix a wheel that today rather unpredictably fell off a cat carrier, but I was undoubtedly proud of myself when it came to this contraption.

I was hammering in a nail on the side of a cabinet to the left of the sink, dropped the nail, and it fell down the waste disposal unit.   What to do?   Aha!   A magnet!   So I took a magnet from off the fridge, and taped it securely to the end of the wand of a kitty toy, and dangled it down the drain and - hey presto!  The nail!