Bugger, that’s what I say.
‘Bugger’. Yes.
So, we headed north, north and east, to the east-middle-bit of the UK, where Trey’s mum lives; (grrr, typed mom). Anyway, having got here I noticed something, but I thought “I’m not going to look at that, at least, not too hard”. But eventually, I felt it was necessary – my car’s leaking… coolant. Yes.
Can you say “frustrated”? It looks like it’s leaking from the water pump, it might just need tightening up, or it might need a proper gasket, but either way, it’s inconvenient – I was planning to work tomorrow (uni work) and then go down to my parents on Wednesday, but instead I’m going to have to disassemble the front of my car, and see whether it’s gasket-death or just a loose bolt. But, as is common with waterpumps, it’s driven off the fan-belt so it’s loosen alternator, take off fan, take of fan pulley, then attempt to see if that’s where the water’s coming from. I guess I should take this ‘opportunity’ to replace the leaky gasket on the thermostat cover too. *mutters darkly*. Really, I think the timing chain cover also needs a new gasket, if I was being totally honest. In fact, I think most of the ‘cardboard’ ones need replacing (why’d I put that in quotes? They really are cardboard) which is unsurprising, but still slightly tedious. Anyway, that’s jobs for home… and I’m not at home at the moment…
We’re at Trey’s mum’s place, unfortunately our nice plan for a wander round the fens (I wanted to say “fells” then) has been slightly, well, reduced in probabilty by the lack of anything waterproof on my side and the large amount of rain on the weather’s side.
So instead, I’m tapping away on the computer while Trey sorts out the last of her stuff to move across to Brizzy; incidentally, we really need to sort out some storage for clothes. Or more accurately I need to go and collect my tall boy, from my parents house, to bring home. It’s ideal, I think, for Trey’s stuff. Unfortunately, it’s also too big to go on the roofrack; *way* to big, so it needs me to hire a van. But I need to hire a van to collect a bike… but I want to use the same van to dump my engine from Claire in Burwin’s, so I’m trying to schedule it all to happen at once, which is proving to be a bit of a nightmare.
As is getting the stuff for my GPS. The only thing I’ve managed to win so far (on ebay) is the PocketPC 2002 upgrade. Since my current version won’t even recognise the memory I can’t *even* install anything on to it, since it thinks it’s only got 15 meg free (when it’s really got about 47 Meg free. *mutter*). I need a Leadtek 9531, I think, that’s the only GPS I can find that still comes with the cable for the ancient 3660; a new battery for the iPaq would be handy – since the current one lasts about2 minutes, and sommat else, oh aye, a PCMCIA sleeve.
This all comes to far-more-money than I have.
I’ve been looking for a ‘bargain’ but it’s just a bit unlikely to happen – as far as I can tell. If I can get at least the GPS unit, then that’ll mean that that ‘bit’ will work, and I can probably put in a limited map system in the available memory – the rest, well, I’ll just have to keep an eye out for it and when it comes up then I’ll go for it.
Bleh.
Plans are afoot for more photography, too.
So, I’ve spent the weekend here in sunny (sic) cambridgeshire, or thereabouts – and I’ve done something I’ve never done before. Yes, I’ve played… Golf. It’s harder than it looks, actually. You’d think that the whole premise of the game – hit ball with stick, ball goes a long way, repeat, would make it moderately simple.
But there’s this whole ground thing, which kept getting in the way, leading to me whacking great chunks of turf at speed towards the hole, and my ball kinda sitting there going “you want me to go where?”. Eventually though I kinda got the hang of it and the ball ended up working it’s way down the [green? not pitch, but that’s what I want to call it] in the direction of the hole. I think I managed to get one in on par. Or one above par, or something around there. Putting, that’s also not my strong point. Well, really, the whole game clearly wasn’t my strong point… but it was good fun, and we also got to see a bunch of dragon flies – which strangely don’t seem to hang around in the West Country.
Last night was entertaining too, spending a funky few hours at Chrissy and Nikki’s place, playing a variety of games – including Chez Goth and Chez Geek – I sort of understook Chez Goth just as we finished – which mean that we (Trey and I were a team…) oh-so-nearly-won Chez Geek. Super Monkey Ball rocked. I’d forgotten that I’d played that with Aisling – indeed, until we played the main game I had vague feelings of I’ve seen these characters, but couldn’t remeber where. Then when Nikki was showing off the main game I twigged… Cool game, we should get it :-)
And then we played Munchkins. This game I totally didn’t get, to be fair to me I don’t think Rand’s used to explaining games to total newbies, so the rather brisk explantion left me sitting there going “I’m holding cards, what do I do with the cards, what do they mean, I don’t follow”. So, uh, we just did kinda random things… until he won. Meh. Chez Geek/Goth (prefered Chez Goth, actually) was fun though.
Unlike a lot of my friends, I’ve never done any kind of gaming, not played RPGs, not played anything more than a bit of Magic The Gathering, and a couple of games of Star Wars (both of which belonged to flatmates) – so it’s all kind of new Terratory. Made a change from Hand and Foot (which rocks) and ShitHead (which is also in the rocking catagory) – and watching films, which is ‘normal’ night in with friends terratory.
Apparently, they’ve re-brought-out RoboRally, which I loved when I played it, so hopefully at some point we’ll be able to go buy that.
On totally another subject…
Oddly, also, I’ve been remembering my dreams. I’ve been both daydreaming about living in the Lake District and dreaming about it. I keep waking up with my head half way up a mountain; dreaming about an earth-sheltery type place, or a restored house/barn. My brain seems to be trying to work on the practicalities of working as Nurse in a big hospital (with the intent of working in A&E) and living half way up a mountain in an area which seems to be ‘a bit short’ on big hospitals. I really don’t want a commute of any more than 45 minutes (that’s really my maximum, I start to feel a bit pissy if I have to commute further than that, don’t ask me why) – although obviously I might have to extend that somewhat if i want the lifestyle I want with the job I want.
I also dreamt about finding an Austin Gypsy. This was Austin’s answer to the Landy, rumoured to have a better engine, and drive slightly better (by a besotted Austin enthusiast, anyway) – the Gypsy’s a slightly different off-roader; and something which’d make a change to the standard Landrover (although I do fancy a Series II/IIa landy too). I think the excuse of living somewhere remote would mean that in very short order I’d find one of these. But dreaming about them?! For goodness sake Kate! Get a grip!
Jeeze, next I’ll be dreaming about tatra’s and trabants. I have a worrying head.
Other people, they dream about sex with Lucy Diamond. Me? Austin bloody Gypsys.
Ah well.
Meh, anyway, I think it’s probably lunch time, and I’ve written whole reams here, so that’s quite enough…
