Cranes and things

I've always been fascinated by cranes. The mechanical ones, not the birds, although they are also interesting.
When I was a kid my parents gave me a set of plastic meccano-type shapes and nuts and bolts called Junior Engineer and it was without a doubt my favourite toy. The thing I built most often was a crane, with a piece of string for the chain and a chunky red hook on the end, and the mechanism would wind it up and down. All very simple, but I enjoyed the way it fitted together and served a purpose.

Today I still find myself stopping to look at cranes, such as this one which spent the day dumping concrete at a house being built nearby, and felt compelled to take photos of the folding up process - taken through the kitchen window because it happened so fast I didn't have time to run up the road. When it was all neatly folded, the truck rode away, mission accomplished with the least possible fuss and disruption to traffic.
 
The next day, I was at the local mall and a truck had come to take away a mobile ATM. It reminded me rather of a portable toilet, except that it was full of money. But the bit I enjoyed most was the name of the company doing the removal. In South Africa, Loots is an Afrikaans surname, but I thought the anglicised version was very apt for the job!

In the garage, He Who Can Fix Anything has a very handy hydraulic crane which lifts up to 2 tons and I can tell you it is worth its weight in gold. After the invention of the wheel, the invention of the hydraulic crane must be the second most useful invention to man. It lifts engines out of cars, puts them back, manoeuvres (yes, I can spell it) everything that is too heavy to lift and generally enables middle aged people to accomplish miracles without pulling a muscle. My job is to pump the handle to do the lifting and then release the air pressure to lower the (usually) gearbox or engine back into the car. This is very critical. A millimetre too far increases the speed of lowering and HWCFA ensures that he is safely out of the way when I am at the controls!

I sometimes think I must have been a man in a previous life!