Kates Journal

So, I found this blog  yesterday; it’s by someone who doesn’t live miles away – I actually found her hunting for a place to bulk buy oats/almonds/etc for the making of our own granola. I’ve actually decided I think I prefer my Granola to the shop bought stuff (despite the fact it was slightly overcooked). It tastes more natural (probably because it is), but the price is, well, it’s a close run thing buying the stuff at Sainsbury’s. If I go down to Lidl, I guess I could get cheaper Oats, and possibly cheaper fruit (although Kathryn said she’d like to get one of these which’d solve the problem). Anyhow, so I hunted for somewhere – and heard at the same time about this incredible whole foods place in Kensington High Street – and found this blog which talked about it. Anyhow, she’s interesting, so I recommend reading her…

Having ‘mailed her, she pointed me (us) at these sites, which are good for veggies in the Thames Valley region: Farmer’s Markets, T3V. Which seems good to me. Although I knew about Reading farmer’s market, I’m slightly frustrated by the fact that  – as when I first looked at it – it falls when I’m on nights; as does the Windsor one.

But hopefully we’ll be able to head down there at some point :)

In other news, I’ve started to feel quite excited about the prospect of having my beloved minor back. Whilst I am incredibly upset and frustrated by what Charles Ware did, or didn’t do, and the standard of what they did do; I’m really pleased to be getting my car back in a safe, if not pristine state. JLH Minors have done (from what I’ve seen from my one visit and the many photos they’ve taken) an awesome job resurrecting a car that Charles Ware had, quite frankly, ruined.

I’m thinking of writing an article on picking a car restorer; because of my hideous experience. Obviously, the MMOC (Morris Minor Owner’s Club) won’t let me name who did the work on my car originally; but I think I have accrued some useful advice; and I’m sure other members of the message board would provide other useful tips, and it could save other owners the heartache of what happened to my Minor.

But, all that said; I’m quite excited about the prospect of having her back…with a working engine (actually properly set up!)… Quite excited. I’m actually considering whether I could (should, might) go to the National Rally; there’s a variety of people I’ve not met up with for quite a while – and while I don’t think I can justify the expense of the petrol to get there; I’d quite like to go.

Between that, and some excitement about getting the DAF on the road, and some excitement about the possibility of the Bike working properly for the first time since I bought it… well; it all amounts to quite a bundle of vehicular thrills.

Despite debts, I’m also considering getting quotes in for the work on the back of the house. I’m debating having the lath-and-plaster ceiling taken down and replaced, because I don’t think it’s going to be possible to get a good finish on it otherwise, which is a little unnerving. It’s more expense, but if the quotes come in around the cost of the extra shifts I can do then it might be worth getting it done, just so we can clear up the kitchen and stop it being so dusty – because quite honestly, being dusty is probably not helping my allergies. And my allergies seem to be gradually getting worse.

Anyhow, I think it’s time for me to go read… and wait for my mum to arrive…

So, today we’ve had a less lazy, but superbly unproductive day; instead of doing any of the jobs that ‘need’ doing we headed out into the hinterlands twixt Slough and Maidenhead and wandered about enjoying the beauty that is available, free of charge, to those who like to wander. We actually spent much of (or indeed almost all of) the morning engaged in web-browsery activities, with Kathryn reading and me hunting down bits for the DAF. Not, as it happens, particularly useful bits, but bits, none-the-less. I’ve got four sets of brakeshoes heading to us – not because I need four, but because it was cheaper to buy 4 than to buy two. And while we may not (it is likely not) get through 2 sets in the time we have remaining here; we might. And it seems silly to chance it. I also paid for a new side repeater. This is because, for some random reason, the DAF has a side repeater on one side and not on the other. It has a cable for it, and I imagine that at some point, someone’s replaced the wing on one side. Presumably they suffered a fit of intense lazyness and decided not to get or transfer the rolo shaped side repeater. It is, I am told by some very nice members of the DAF Owner’s Club Forum, the same as that used on the Fiat 500 – and thus it is that which I’ve ordered… Unfortunately, the sills haven’t materialised yet. They did say 2-3 weeks, so if they’ve not appeared after my nights I’ll have to contact them and check progress. It’s not like I can afford this, but hey, what’s money if you don’t use it? I also sorted out my Agency application; it’s been dragging on for a while and thanks to them I’ve had live vaccine injected into my arm (because my MMR wasn’t complete, because I didn’t get it as a kid) – but I neglected to get a copy of the evidence that I got it. So I need to send that in… Which is silly, because if I’d've put on the original form: Dates of Vaccination 22/4/03 and 29/05/08, and then sent it, that’d've been fine. But I can’t write to them and say I’ve had it now, because I put I wasn’t sure of the dates. Which I wasn’t. Bah. BUT – by ringing them – they’ve been through the file, and all the stuff they said they didn’t have it turns out they *do* have. So it now does just hang on me getting a copy of my vaccine dates. I have, however, failed to change the oil in the bike. I’ve been thinking about changing the oil in the bike, but quite frankly, I’ve done so few miles on it that I resent the need to change the oil. This is, I suspect, linked to the reduced top speed – in that I suspect that some of the missing petrol is going into the gearbox oil, and some of the gearbox oil is being burnt instead of petrol in a crank-case-over-pressurisation issue. But I’m not really sure enough to actually consider fixing it myself – because the only way I could do so is to strip the engire engine down, replace all the seals and measure everything to check tolerances. This would take me weeks, and ideally require a workbench. I don’t have one of them, so… The afternoon, however, was spent wandering the countryside which was a far more sensible way to spend it – despite the grey and overcast nature of the day. It’s been warm and not actually muggy, leading to a very pleasant walk (hayfever not-withstanding). Photos are here. And now, given the impending arrival of my mother, it is probably time to clear and clean the lounge. And perhaps also, finally, put up the cabinet in the bathroom. Kathryn’s painted it, and I’ve done the wall in the office… Which means, it’s time to do things.

So then – did we leap into action today – given the rain outside and the related inability to service the bike or work on the daf – did we instead leap into action and finish the bathroom?

Did we paint the wall in the study?

No, we did not. I had a headache this morning, and we only actually got going some time after 1. Possibly 2. But we’ve had really nice day; scrambled eggs and bagels for breakfast; a nice long shower; yesterday’s curry for lunch; I’ve sorted out the bike getting the bits needed to make it not only MOT worthy, but in a better condition than it’s been for ages – and organised a day to get it down to Burwin to see if they can figure out why it’ll only do 50mph. And maybe get that efficiency up a bit, because it’s down around 25-30mpg which is way-low for an MZ.

Kathryn used that opportunity of me ringing to head to the post office, and then we settled down reading websites and doing little of import for a while before embarking on a mammoth larder clearout. Rubbish and tools out; mould off the wall (but it really needs a coat of mould resistant paint), and then cleaned and tidied and labelled and reorganised. It’s actually a usable space now (although I can’t wait to clean it, rip out the old shelves and reorganise that).

Finally we cooked an awesome dinner.

Kathryn made gorgeous shortbread biscuits yesterday, which I may have to eat some more of, when I’m less full. The good thing about not being on holiday all the time is I suspect I’d weigh about 3 times more than I do if I was.

And now, potentially, trivial pursuit.

As an aside, the burn on my hand is peeling…

So, Brick’s winged his way to a new owner; apparently en-route he shed some bits of distributor, but handily the spare one we’d thrown in the boot (along with all the other spares) turned out to have the relevant bits. The new owner didn’t seem that mifffed… it seems about par-for-Brick’s behaviour. I hope that he gives the new owner less trouble.

Anyhow, on to the Dyke cred. We’ve gained points:

We’re terribly green little dykey people; Kathryn cycles all over the place, she cut my hair today, we grow our own veg (and fruit, if the tomato brings us fruit), I do car maintainance, ride a motorbike, we do DIY, and for extra bonus dyke cred:

We made our own granola!

The recipe is not quite right; more honey, and such… but I’m dead chuffed. I do, however, need to find a bulk purchase place for rolled oats, almonds and such.

In other news, we went into a charity shop today, and I left with 3LPs, a single and a book; oh, and a Buffy the Vampire Slayer game (that’s almost certainly terrible) and we got Trivial Pursuit.

And in final news for the day, Jejy’s now insured; and Kathryn’s been added to the insurance…all this at a grand total of nothing :)

I’m quite pleased. Well, it cost the £15 administration fee, but still.

We’ve also been making progress, slowly, on the house, the hideous wall of doom in the office has had a coat of basecoat and it’s 3rd coat of yellow. Hopefully one more (and hopefully when it dries it won’t be all cracked like the last 2 coats) and it’ll finally be done.

 

Kathryn found this comic. It’s excellent.

So, our social life here in lovely Slough is somewhat, well, limited. We don’t know anyone – that’s the easiest way to put it. So our social life tends to consist of going somewhere else. Unfortunately – at the moment we are without a road legal car, and have only one set of bike gear (not to mention the bike’s top speed when it’s warm is about 50mph; instead of the more normal 90).

So the sudden offers of visitation and a party was a bit of a coincidence. Then, to make it more odd, Nikki offered to visit too… So all in all, we had a crammed Saturday. First up, Alex, a very nice chap with a DAF came down to let us have a little ride in his DAF 33. This is the model before ours, and has a smaller engine and body. Having sat and generally chatted for a while he let me go out and drive the DAF.

Nikki, you’d love it – apart from it’s pollution producing engine it’s just like driving an EV. It’s completely smooth – you basically put your foot down (something I struggle with as I try and modulate the acceleration) and the car gets faster – there’s no clunky gearchanges. The 33’s apparently somewhat noiser than the 44 should be. And there’s a couple of tips he gave us and some advice (apparently the non-forced-air heating and cooling system isn’t hugely effective; and augmenting it with a dinky little 12V fan is a cunning plan). Also, the heat-exchanger which uses exhaust fumes to warm the carb is missing. It could be repaired, and I may at some point discuss doing so with an engineering workshop.

Anyhow, after our little journey in his ‘Little belter’, Nikki and Kate came round. We showed’em the local abandonment (mostly ‘cos when they arrived we were showing Alex the pain of having a workshop and a large garage feet away from the house completely in disrepair). They very kindly offered us lunch, and we grabbed some Pizza from the local pizzaria. A fine time was had showing them the progress on the house and chatting about their new Prius, and being reminded that I’d promised to make a music video for one of Nikki’s songs (but she’s not supplied the good-quality copy of the track yet. It’s only been a few years… I also need to find some actors to do the video).

Anyhow, the plan then was to hang around for a bit – Kathryn looking to see what we might do to kill time in London – before heading to a party (in London, obviously). She found this. I wish we’d've had more time to explore it – the live music we heard was good, and it looked like it’d've been a fun place for us to kill a few hours – but because it was so out of the way (it’s quite some distance from Mile End tube), we ended up only having around an hour there.

Unfortunately, someone spilled beer on Kathryn’s jacket – which was somewhat annoying. We headed out from there and across London to the party – which was with some of her University freinds. It’s ages since we’ve been to a party and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was pretty nervous, not being good at meeting people outside work; but in the end it turned out to be a thorougly pleasant evening. 

It was ostensibly a Eurovision party; but they were (perhaps thankfully) not playing any of the Eurovision music! Sadly, the host had cooked – and what looked like awesome food – but we’d filled up on burger and chips and flapjack at Paradise Park, not realising there’d be proper food at the party… They’d got homecooked flatbread and cous-cous and…. it looked so yummy. So we chilled out and chatted to people and so on for a while. Unfortunately, the trains being the trains we had to leave at 11pm to get home. Or so we thought.

The tube took us almost 50 minutes to get from North london to Paddington (we were about 5 minutes walk from a tube station) – meaning we pulled in to Paddington station and our alledged train was no longer on the noticeboard. Of course, there weren’t any people to ask. However, what we did note is the last train of the night which was meant to stop at Burnham, didn’t. Indeed, there were no trains that stopped at Burnham. The little paper timetable said Burnham, the computer said no. In the end we took the next train to Slough, and ended up forking out nearly 8 quid to not-quite-get-us-home. We didn’t have much change left – and the Sunday night rate on taxis here is extortionate. I’m pretty much convinced that we should stop getting (or attempting to get) the train in to London anymore – and go back to my old system; Drive in much of the way and the tube from there inwards. The train is so astonishingly unreliable that the minute benefit of being able to drink just doesn’t seem worth the hastle anymore.

Today, the plan was to sort out the Viva ready for blokie to collect it on Tuesday. Unfortunately it’s rained all day; and having taken us in excess of 2 hours to get back from London we’re both absolutely wrecked. We’ve both spent large chunks of the day asleep (Kathryn’s asleep up on the bed atm), and, well, that’s really all there has been to our Sunday. We watched Into the Woods – which was excellent, heartily recommend that to everyone. Haven’t even eaten lunch (which is handy, ‘cos we’re really short on food!).