Yesterday we went to see my parents; well, more accurately, I went to do lots of little jobs for my parents, and Trey, well, Trey’s just wonderful.
Yes, so we cruised down on the motorway in Rebecca, the 1.3 engine seems to be going okay, my instruments however were having a fun game with the Rev counter swinging gently from 3.5k rpm to 5k rpm for no change in speed. I think that the earth’s gone a bit iffy; either that or… well, I’ll go into that later.
I did stop once on the motorway, after hearing one of those unnerving clank, clunk, BANG noises which I vaguely thought “hey, we’ve just hit some debris….or it could be my entire engine exploding!” so I pulled over and checked, and nothing appeared to be amiss – so we headed off. I definately need to sort out putting the proper carb on though, ‘cos the engine is so breathless.
Anyway, we got to my parents house without further mishap; enjoying a beautiful proper summer day, slathered on the Factor 30, breathed, and entered my house… where my two young nephews (aged 4 and 2) were…bouncing.
Oh my god are they tiring. Fun, sweet (most of the time), but tiring. I’ve started to get the ability to say “no” now, which is good. The bouncing started the moment we arrived, mostly because they knew that Aunty Kate was going to make the steam engine work. So having supped a nutitious cup of coffee we went outside, and thankfully the (15 year old) steam engine I gave John for xmas actually worked. Worked exactly as it should.
Which entranced them for a while.
Then we had lunch, and played outside for a while before I put up the Trellis. I’m hoping it’s held up okay, it’s got less screws in it that I would have done by choice, but small children and drills make me nervous. I couldn’t pull it off the wall at any rate. My dad even came outside for a while, which is something that’s not happened for a long time.
The proper summer storm, the heavy drops of rain which arrived suddenly was gorgeous. If it hadn’t been for kiddies and not having a change of clothes I’d’ve quite happily lain out in it, run round in it. And that smell… of summer rain…. beautiful.
Then out to the park with John, when the rain had stopped, and where he – of course – manage to find a dead bird to prod ‘are these worms’… [poke]. No. Oh, that’s. Ick. Um, right, when we get home you need to wash your hands properly. Bleuch.
The sun was strong enough that being outside for any period of time and moving was quickly tiring – so we headed back. John not nearly tired out enough. Then came the joy of transfering songs from a video to an audio tape for my mum, it had some Hindi songs on it that she liked, but didn’t want to keep watching the video… having dug out an ancient video from my collection, one with an audio line out (RCA) connector on it. Unfortunately it’s mono, but it was better than nowt for now.
Pack that away… dinner (mmm, fish pie)… mow the lawn (Never previously a spectator sport). I also found out that you’re meant to clean out the underside of flymos. I didn’t know that before. They hover much better if you do that.
And then…. oh yeah, fix the dishwasher (with the use of what is commonly termed ‘a large hammer and chisel’ – this allowed me to bend the piece of metal without taking it apart (and thus all the hassle involved).
After a bit of a pause we headed home. The scenic route home, not the motorway… This takes about twice as long, but it’s gorgeous. Truly gorgeous scenery, my car running on exactly the roads it’s intended to run on, the cart sprung rear end bouncing a little over the very uneven roads, but the front soaking up the uneven British backroads… It was just a beautiful evening…
Until it got dark and I switched on the lights. Side(running)lights only, ‘cos it was only hazy dark; and the little voltmeter sat happily at 14ish volts…. then a few minutes later plumeted like a lead brick to 12 volts. It appears my alternator’s wandered off somewhere dark to be with the pixies. I need to have a look today and see if it’s actually dead or if it’s just a duff connection.
If it *is* dead then that’s probably the last one I’ll buy new/recon. It’s lasted a couple of years, but that’s frickin pathetic. So it’ll be down to a scrappy and find something appropriately shaped and sized – but hopefully with way higher output capabilities. Yes. So, we’ll see.
