Kates Journal

So, it being the holiday season, or at least the tail end of the holiday season I thought I’d emerge from the hole in which Kathryn and I have been hiding and wish you all a Very Merry (if somewhat late) Xmas. We, for our part, lurked inside the house and I had a fantastic day. Peaceful, relaxing and with the woman I love.

We had a slightly lazy morning (by my standards), and got up at half-8/9ish when hunger and the fact that I’m still like a child at Christmas (bouncy, in my usual bouncy way) got the better of us. Thankfully I didn’t get an agency shift, something my bank account is less overjoyed about than me, which mean that we could munch on home made Chocolate and Pecan pancakes (Americanstyle). Then we did prezzies, and Kathryn’s mom & dad had been very generous which meant that prezzies actually took quite a while.

Kathryn and I then did each other’s prezzies. Kathryn got me the Morris Minor Biography, which I’d spotted only weeks before and lusted after; she ordered it way before though…

But the best gift, is the one she made:

She made me a mini Kate Monster!

She’s so cute! And awesome! (applicable to both Kate Monster and Kathryn).

I want to take her to work and ‘assess’ patients with her. It would both be awesome and hilariously amusing (for me).

Sorry, two awesome’s in one sentence. We relaxed the rest of the day, with a little break to cook a Xmas dinner (Parmesan Chicken, veggies, Yorkshires). We watched White Christmas and the Doctor Who Xmas Special (with scary Cybermen)! It was one of the most beautiful Xmases I remember.

Yesterday, we repeated the Xmas experience with the visit to my Mum’s; getting yummy prezzie from her and her partner, fluffy prezzies from my sister and her husband and sharing our hand-made gifts with them.

And tomorrow, before my nights, we shall have a mini spending spree, since everyone rather handily gave us vouchers for the same store (John Lewis), although we’re planning a little trip to Peter Jones, in Chelsea, as befits our double-barrelled name :)

The only other news over the Xmas period that occurs to me to share is that my laptop is not, well, great. We’ve had days without some of the keys, days when we’ve decided not to start, and the screen’s clearly on it’s way out again :(

I’m watching a few G4 Powerbooks on ebay, and may pick up one of them to replace the aged Dell… Oh, and ‘beccamogs shaken one of the exhaust clamps loose, so I need to do that up tomorrow, or Tuesday. :)

So, for the last 5 years the venerable Philips Hugeatron Widescreen has been providing entertainment; coming from freecycle with an alledged ‘dead tube’ and being fixed with a 21p capacitor it has provided good service. It is getting on for 15 years old now, the set having been about 10 when I got it.

Today, however, it showed signs that all isn’t well within it’s HT circuitry. The picture did that which my mum’s set used to do. Varying brightness and lines across the screen.

At 15 years of service and knowing that the there are only 1 or 2 boards inside that case and therefore replacement isn’t going to be cheap – if they’re even still available – I am vaguely concerned about the future of the TV set. Most TV shops looked in horror at my old set because it had discrete components, as opposed to whole entire whop-out-and-replace-boards. I fear that my 15 year old Philips set may get the same ‘you want that fixed?!’ treatment.

…I can’t recall seeing a TV repair shop in Slough…come to think of it….do they even exist?*

If it dies, however, then it either needs fixing or replacing because…

Well, I don’t actually watch that much TV*** so you might think not, but a more accurate statement is that I don’t sit and gaze at it in it’s mind-numbing glory – instead being selective and watching only the shows I actually like (House, BSG, Big Bang Theory, Dr Who), but I do like to watch those shows. And films. I like films. And thus there is a requirement for a decent TV set. I don’t actually care for a TV Tuner, between iPlayer and the internet one can find virtually all the shows one might want to watch, but the screen bit, that’s kinda important. I’ve been quite happy living in my low-def glory, 625 lines has been quite sufficient. But they’ve been 625 lines of 15 year old top-of-the-range widescreen-flatscreen-CRT-glory. It has great colour, it has a really nice smart-widescreen-mode which is so lovely that Lauren wanted it; and it’s not too clever for it’s own good (i.e. it doesn’t switch itself off just to wind you up).

But I must consider the possibility that it’s passing is nigh, and plans must be made for it’s repair or replacement. The annoying thing is I’d got myself all ready, conceptually, for replacing the shonky Technics amplifier which lurketh underneath the TV. It has started producing audio with the left channel much quieter than the right. No Dolby Digital 5.1 shinyness for me, oh no. I was thinking about a nice, understated Cambridge Audio A1. Simple, to the point, and moderately cheap.

The most annoying thing is, stepping up from Lauren’s god-awful Beco? Bush? 22″ goldfishbowl TV (which was equal to my 1970 Ferguson Colourstar but without the high-pitched-whistle that she could hear) to the Philips 32″ Widescreen was, to put it bluntly, lovely. Going back (when I moved in here) to using the Digital 19″ CRT as my TV for a while was painful, and so the idea of going down in screen size is a bit of a difficulty for me. But I look at the prices of TVs and think ‘do I really, really need 32 inches’?

Bah. Still, if it is going to expire and allow out it’s magic smoke then I guess just before the New Year sales is a pretty good time for it to do so. Tell you something though, you know life’s not that bad when the worst thing**** in itis the near death experience of a telly.

As a non-related-tangential-sidepoint (involke tangent:repair places:non-tv:lack-of-money:lack-of-time=car) I dropped off the gearbox to be reconditioned yesterday. The owner of the workshop where I dropped it off, currently battling failure of heating, is a little (i.e. he is little) Indian/Sri Lankan chap of an age where he possibly was, many years ago, an immigrant to the country, and is, quite frankly, awesome. It’s that kind of shop where you drop off something the age of the minor’s gearbox and you know this guy is going to take care of it appropriately. Shelves stocked with piles of bits-of-engine. The guy was wearing a proper (green) overall/coverall/labcoat thing (who’s name I can’t think of at the moment; like the chap in Open all hours, but in green), closed with *string*.

There were parts manuals around that almost certainly date from the time of the minor. It was fantastic. I am hoping that once the Diff arrives and goes off to him, and the gearbox is done, he’ll allow me to take some photos of him working, because it’s an awesome environment, and while I suck at portraiture, I’d love to shoot some shots in his workshop (of him, and the space).

As if to prove my point, they don’t take cards and the invoices appear to be prepared on a manual typewriter.

* Apparently there are quite a few**, but most of them seem to start LCD repair; it may be worth checking it out, but I suspect that we’re into the area of spending lots to get very little.
** One of which goes by the intriguing name of Audiorama Vintage Radio.
*** I say that a lot, I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince
**** Apart, obviously, from the near terminal lack of money and time.

Yesterday I engaged in shameless money grubbing, despite being exhausted I drove for an hour and a half after a revoltingly early wake up call, to go work in St. Marks Hospital for the Feverish and Sickly. I’ve done one shift there before – a night shift months ago – and bizzarely some of the staff were on again. And also somewhat confusingly we’ve had so many agency staff at the trust in which I work over the last few weeks that I knew a whole load of people who were at St. Marks yesterday – all of whom looked very confused when they realised I was out of my normal location. Not only that, but a member of the Ambulance Service who I thought seemed interesting, but never got around to working out how to say ‘hi, shall we meet up for a coffee some-time’*, and who recently left our area to work closer to home, happened to be on duty too. So it was kind of like working in my own department.

I even knew how the system worked and were the drugs were… which was nice. It wasn’t that harder day, although being one of the agency nurses I got shuffled from one place to another through the morning, ended up doing admission assessments, having my own bay, looking after an observation ward… It was all fine though.

Unfortunately, it has left me exhausted. The 3 hours of driving after how ever many days on shift has left me feeling drained. I slept in ’til nearly 10, which is incredibly unusual for me, and even now just ache. I need to sort out the exhaust on the mog, the front manifold of which is leaking like….well…something. Although I’ve asked (at long last) about the abandoned garage a couple of houses down, so if I’ve got access to that then that’d make all the jobs that need doing much more pleasant. Unfortunately, it also requires time; time which I don’t currently have. ONe would think that you’d either have time or money, and though this month through a process of working a ridiculous number of extra shifts I’m able to actually look at my bank account and not wince, which is nice.

There may even be some to pay off the overwhelming debts that lurk on my credit card. And perhaps there’s the possibilty that Charles Ware’s Morris Minor centre might respond to my statement that I’m going to have to take them to court over the ‘restoration’ of Rebecca they did 7 years ago – in which case – the debt incurred fixing that restoration will be somewhat ameliorated.

Anyhow, I need to get on with doing Kathryn’s present, the coffee doesn’t seem to have kicked in in quite the way I’d hoped, but I am at least upright.

In other news I’ve sorted a place to sort the gearbox – so the new gearbox is off to them to be reconditioned (later today if I get off my arse) *and* I’ve got the clips to hold the trim in place on the DAF. Woo yeah!

* I’m always faintly worried that it’ll (a) sound odd, particularly with the techs/paramedics because I barely know ‘em, and (b) sound like some sort of come-on, when all I want to do is make some friends**
** Yes, I really suck at making friends.

A. People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blog and replace any question that they dislike with a new, original question.

B. Tag eight people. Don’t refuse to do that. Don’t tag who tagged you. I dun’ play that game. I tag all my friends who’ve not done it who want to :)

01. What are your nicknames? RaKate! is about the only one that still stands. My sister and her husband used to call me Turold (after a person in the Bayeux tapestry, for obscure reasons), and people at work call me all sorts of names which have very little to do with my real name – but aren’t really nicknames as-such.

02. How do you style your hair? Style is probably an overgenerous term. When it’s proper-short it gets blow-dried and filled with goo (wax, I believe). When it’s as long as it is now it gets dried with the hair drier while I read the computer and then eventually I look in a mirror and see what it looks like…

03. What’s new in your life right now? Civilisation, that’s still pretty new. It’s awesome though. Having a kitchen is also fairly new and exciting still :)

04. How many colours are you wearing now? 4

05. Are you an introvert or extrovert? I’m a sort of introverted extrovert. I’m dead shy (no, really) but tend to overcome it with force of will – which is fine (a) at work and (b) in single person situations. When it’s a big group I tend to shut up and hide in a corner.

06. What was the last book you read? Pole to Pole by Michael Palin – despite lots of awesome books being given to us by our friends for our civilisation, we still went out and bought more second hand. I’ve just started reading something which is called something like Car Maintainance, Love and Something. It’s a lesbian book which appears to have originated in Australia and comes from the wonderful Lauren and Chrissy beings.

07. Do you nap a lot? Rarely. When exhausted I’ll nap. I quite like curling up with Kathryn tho’, and am more inclined to nap, head in her lap, than I am if I’m on my own.

08. If the person you secretly like is already taken, what would you do? Heh, she is. By me. Muwhahahahahaha!

09. Is there anything that has made you unhappy these days? Money. Single biggest stressor in my life. About the only true stressor.

10. What’s your favorite dessert? Cheesecake, or, oooh, Key Lime Pie. Something like that :).

11. How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? Work days – ’bout an hour. 30 minutes of slowly munching through breakfast, coffee, reading LJ… and 15 minutes to shower, dry hair, and then about 15 minutes of chaos as I try and flee the building.

12. What websites do you visit daily most frequently? Uh, LJ, Questionable Content, my e-mail, MMOC and the DAF Owner’s Club Forum, hrm, that’s about it. BBC News and the Guardian and Independent websites pop up quite often, and the 360 Winnett blog, oh and What Do I Know and Random acts of Reality are also pretty high up on the frequency of visits list.

13. What classes are you taking right now? Well; I’m an A&E Nurse, there’s a few courses I want to do for that; PILS and ALS spring to mind, not on any of them though. Unofficially, I’m taking my self-taught DAF maintainance course, and continuing to learn more about the Morris Minor.

14. Do you like to clean? Not really, but I like things *being* clean, so I endure the former to reach the latter.

15. What’s the last song that got stuck in your head? Everyone’s a little bit racist (Avenue Q)

16. What’s the last movie you saw? Wall-E, it was excellent.

17. What’s better: eternal love or memorable love? That is a dumbass question, and I say that knowing I could replace it within the rules of the meme. Surely Eternal Love is pretty darn memorable.

18. What is your least favourite thing to do that you have to do everyday? Driving too and from work. I miss when I used to walk to work.

19. Best time of your life? Now.

20. What are you most looking forward to in the coming month? Spending Christmas time with my love….

This is the most likely explanation for today’s occurrences. Whilst my plan was to service the Mog – in a limited way at least – grease all the grease-points, adjust the drum brakes at the back, repack the front hubs with grease (nearly forgot to do that), change the gearbox and engine oil, and that was about it.

But, being as I’m a well known tinkerer I had a little look under the distributor cap and found lurking (prior to any problems, thankfully) an almost completely disintegrated set of contacts. Several of which appear to have rotated to be at a jaunty, if inconvenient angle. The rotor-arm was also looking distinctly less perky than normal – being a fetching shade of black.

Also in the realms of unfortunatitude, I realised after I emptied the engine of oil that the oil filter I’d picked up was the wrong one. So off I went back to Halfrauds to get the right one (I have to come clean, they reckoned it was the wrong one, and they were right – I thought the A+ engine went into both the Mini and the Ital, but I was wrong; oh so wrong). It turned out that they no longer stock Ital* oil filters – but I went down to Jagdev Autos – who, it appears, do actually stock things – it’s just that the bloke (presumably Jagdev’s son) who I asked last time doesn’t know about how to convert from the old part numbers to the older ones to the modern equivalent.

In fact, they had everything except a fan belt and a rotor arm. If I’d've realised I needed a fanbelt I’d've got one – ‘cos he could have ordered one in – like the rotor arm which he did order in. He ordered in the Rotor arm and it arrived all of half an hour later. Well, I presume it did – I turned up having adjusted the brakes and repacked the hubs with grease – still wearing my ill-fitting boiler suit (with Singapore Technology Aerospace on it, oversprayed with Whipem Down Garage (back from Pride in 2005)) to collect the rotor arm, and at that point asked about the fan-belt only to discover it was too late to get it.

So I went back to Halfords who did have what is alledged to be the correct fan-belt for an ital. Only it ain’t. Even with the adjustor (which is, I’ll grant, the wrong adjustor) removed and the alternator hard-up against the engine you can’t actually get the fan-belt around the alternator, the water pump and the crank-shaft-pulley. The current belt (which has flung some of itself somewhere) is so long that even at the very end of the adjuster it’s still not taught (hence, one presumes, the occasional bouts of alternator-light-delayed-turning-offitude). So I’ll be taking it back to Halfords and asking if I can change it for one that’s "a bit longer").

The rest of the service seems to have gone okay. I want to stick up a shot of the Distributor cap at some point – see if anyone else has seen anything like it – the contacts do look to me like they’ve decided to wander off at some point and turn themselves round to face the wrong way. They’re corroded to buggery as well, one presumes that’s the salt-water on the roads.

As a side point, inspecting the under side of the car revealed a happy state of affairs where all the paint is more or less intact, there’s a couple of small areas which need some rust-killer/primer/paint attention which I’ve (for the time being) slapped old oil on :)

And amazingly, that which came out of the gearbox was not filled with great shards of metal, something which makes me feel better :)

And today, we have plans, so I must away with the fairies, get showered and we should get off.

* The engine in my minor is an uprated Ital** engine. The ital has a later (more developed, more powerful, stronger), larger version of the engine in the minor.
** Isn’t it amazing what you can find out from Wikipedia – apparently the Ital went on to be produced in China for years after it was discontinued here. Albeit with a different engine, transmission and chassis.