Mostly lemon based

Day: June 10, 2007

  • Contrary to my own expectations

    After a solid hour of lying, eyes embedded in various bits of pillow, I declared that my eyes were better enough and that the weather had cooled enough for me to endure the outside world; or at least, if not, to achieve something inside.

    Fortunately for me, clouds were scudding across the sky, and the sun hid behind them; so I headed out to Halfords to find me a new bike battery (the one on the bike is quite definitely not well – to be fair it’s well up to replacement, I make it at least 4 years old, and it’s been flat (for long periods) more times than I can count) and, well, I’d rather not spend days relaxing waiting for the RAC/AA. So, yeah, that and some spray paint to spray the welding on Brick.

    So off I toddled, and I came back with, amazingly, a bike battery and some spray paint.

    I’m not sure when playing with hideous chemicals became un-fun, but frankly, filling the battery was less enjoyable than I care to recount, sulphuric acid as I recall being quite unpleasant. At any rate, it was filled, charged, and attached to the bike. The bike now has working brake, indicator, and other lights, a new brake disk (which I can’t bed in, because without an MOT…I can’t get tax…and I can’t ride it anywhere to bed the new disk/pads in. Poot).

    Uh, and the car? The car has been spray painted. Quickly, not particularly tidily, and y’know what, I’m going to ring that garage and get them to sort out the oil pressure switch and if it needs it, pump. And y’know what else? It was still bloody hot out there.

    At any rate, in between doing these jobs I also nipped to B&Q and got the junction box, because I wanted to extract the wiring from the bathroom-to-be (currently still a spare bedroom :-) ), this involved removing the socket from that room.

    I now have some plastering to do.

    And I remain unimpressed with the standard of the ‘professional’ rewire. Although at least, the guy who did it has daubed on the many cables that go into the junction box where they go (I need to correct one of them now!). The new junction box is to maintain the ring main, without the socket. I may be able to dispose of it when I’ve got more floor up; I’m hoping so; but at the moment it’s a neat solution.

    I’ve also switched the light switch in the spare bedroom from a wall-switch to a ceiling mounted pull-cord. At some point soon it’ll become the bathroom (I think, when there’s plumbing in there); and so before that I’d like to get all the wiring in… I need some hazard zone 1 lighting though. While I was in B&Q I did have a bit of a stand by the air-conditioners. I am weak, but not quite that weak. Wait until I’m working nights and have to sleep in the heat of the day…. then I’ll be weak.

    Anyway, I also got a concrete specific drill bit, so that pipe should be out of that damn wall quicker than you can say ‘uh, get out the damn wall you evil pipe’. I also got some grey pipe; so it will ‘match’ the other soil pipe. Although I *think* I needed some solvent too, because it’s a solvent joint at the soil-pipe end. But hey, that’s a job for another day. I do need to work out how to remove the globe-taps though, I presume they’re threaded – and that the doojit that attaches to the lead pipe is separate? Anyhow.

    Yeah, can you tell I’m not sleeping well at the moment? With the vague wandery posts? Right. So, what I did do though was work out that the pipes, the copper ones, for the heating, they are not quite as long as would be convenient. So I will probably cut them in a slightly odd place, so I can avoid having two joins next to each other. Uh, and I raised a lot of floorboards. Well, not ‘a lot’ perhaps. But several. There’s now just two between me and all the floor that needs to come up being up. That’s the positive. The negative is that I need to take up the floor I laid so I can put the heating pipes in; that’s what comes of improvising something to do. What I should do is plan. Or more accurately, write down my plan.

    So, tomorrow sees the bike back for a second MOT; and hopefully a pass. And then the keys back to the rental place, and then the Kate for a Doctor’s appointment.

    I’m sure you’re all thrilled by this information… :)

  • No, actually, it’s too hot.

    So I was going to try and sort the oil pressure switch, but it’s *way* too tight, and I fear snapping it. So I am actually going to let a garage handle it. And the service, because quite frankly 31.5 degrees C  (89 degrees F) is too hot for working on the car. Really, too hot. It’s too warm in the house for me anyhow (around 28 degrees).

    Aircon anyone?

    I did get the switch onto the bike, but I can’t check it terribly easily because (our survey said) the battery is flat. So I’m gonna charge the battery until say, early evening, and then try and make progress. I’d go for doing stuff in the house, but frankly, my eyes hurt. So I’m going to lie somewhere and feel faintly sorry for myself. And tomorrow, we shall attack the GP.

  • Ouch :(

    So I’m meant to be doing the car, my plan was ‘service the car, fit the new brakelight switch, if I get time carry on with the bathroom’. Unfortunately, I slept like crap – it was too hot (I had the fan on, which probably didn’t help with…) – and my eyes were sore; so sore. I woke up this morning and looked in the mirror, it looks like I’ve not slept for weeks; my eyes are a vivid red – closing them hurts, opening them hurts. I *seriously* need some different meds, and I suspect, eyedrops from the GP.

    I’m hoping they’ll refer me to the allergy clinic, because the drugs don’t work anymore… Basically, every time I go they put me on different drugs, and every time they work for a year and then after a year they stop working. I should, if I’d’ve thought about it, have switched to one of my other meds that I’ve got kicking around from previous prescriptions.

    Anyhow, so I went to pick up the Viva yesterday; there are artists in this world, and there are also people like Elmyr de Hory; and the chap who welded the Viva – clearly a talented metal worker; the quality of his panels is incredible; it’s beautiful. Unfortunately, like the work of Elmyr de Hory it’s also fake. The patches merely hide the rust, they don’t cure it. Still, it’ll do for a few years, and it stops people falling out of the car ;-)

    Hopefully it also means that an MOT pass is not so far away as to be impossible. We hope.

    I’m thinking, given how crap I’m feeling, I may get someone else to do the service. I’d been considering it because I don’t actually have a decent Jack or axle stands here; but my eyes are so sore that I think the minimum I have to do (i.e. putting the interior back in) is probably not an unreasonable thing to do.