I shouldn’t whine :)

So, it’s been a bit of a busy week and posting (while it’s been in my head) has been a bit of a not-happening-thing.

Amazingly, on Tuesday Jonathon at JLH informed me that Rebecca was (or would be) ready to pick up that evening. Sporting a new MOT, and despite the gearbox sounding like a blender filled with spanners, all the work that was paid for and asked for was done, with the exception of a few piddly jobs. I chatted with Kathryn and we decided to head up after work on Wednesday and bring Rebecca back to the fold.

We flew up there on Wednesday, the trains being amazingly good to us (although Virgin had double booked our seats, but we found a pair together elsewhere on the train); and the timetable’s incredibly irritating, because you arrive from the FGW train in Reading just after the previous Leamington Spa Virgin train service has left, so all the staff go ‘oh, platform…no, sorry, you’ve just missed that one’…

Having got there we were met at the station by Jonathon (who really is terribly nice), who also kept us entertained with tea while we waited for Rebecca to make her way back from the engine-place. She’d gone back there because she’d sucked up a bunch of crap from the petrol tank and wasn’t idling very well. Carb cleaned out (and apparently ‘could do with a rebuild’, *sigh*); she returned. She sounds *fabulous*.

I’ve missed that A+ series engine. It doesn’t clatter musically the way the A series did (mind you, all my engines have been pretty worn out), and is apparently now developing a shocking 75bhp, approx. ISTR that it was originally rated at around 56 or 65bhp, but I doubt that the A+ I had was developing more than around 50 or possibly 40. It was pretty sick. And by the time we got up there, probably around 30 :)

Anyhow, she sounds lovely, and quite sporty. But, in the way that’s traditional, Jonathon reckoned that they cold just pop the new heater control valve on, so we’d not cook on the way home. That 15 minute job took a couple of hours (waiting for the car to cool down, tap not fitting, different tap not fitting, studs going in, coming out…) – and when we finally went to leave, just as they’d locked up the garage and the gate they realised that Jonathon’s car had a flat tyre… and Jonathon was leading us to the nearest local petrol station…

We finally started making our way home at about 2100… And finally got home, having not eaten dinner, just after 2300. I fell into bed and then had to get up at 0500, to get to work. But it was nice, driving the minor. The reason the journey home took that long is we have to run in the engine. People don’t seem to bother (or know) about running in engines anymore. But having just forked out a grand for an engine I’m going to give it lots of love; so I’ve been good about not taking it far over 45mph (I’ve not even hit 50 – as 45 was the limit that was proscribed by the engine builder).

Apart from the sidelights stopping working (ack! turned out to be a corroded fuse) and the starter motor jamming on (and not working once, I think I need a new solenoid), it’s been trauma free. And I’ll tell you something, she’s darn nippy. Roundabouts in particular are standard-suspension-pushing.

But one of the *bestest* things about having Rebecca back (apart from the stupid grin it puts on my face) is that we took her to my mum’s house at the weekend – and drove my mum to her wedding. Paint all washed and shiny (at least in quite a few places – particularly the back where she’s been painted, the roof which they ‘mopped’ and the bonnet which they seem to have also polished), sporting a cream ribbon (which Kathryn went and got, ‘cos she’s a *star*), we carried my mum to and her and her new hubbie from her wedding; which felt quite fun.

The wedding itself was really beautiful. It was a small affair, my mum and Paramito invited only close family and a few friends; in all I think there were 10 or so people. The Register Office in Newbury is really grand – it’s a huge old Edwardian manor, and is quite beautiful. It’s just a shame that you only get a few seconds for photos – but James – who is also an awesome friend – came and took photos of the wedding.

The rain even stopped long enough for M&P to be photo’d outside. It started again as we did the group shots…

Once we got back to the house, and everyone was being fed by my mum (who remains a truly awesome cook) the weather cleared completely and we spent the afternoon and evening hanging around outside in the sun.

Then Sunday we hurtled (for very low speed values of hurtling) back home, tidied and greeted Ali and Kris – two of my friends who Kathryn’d never met and I’d not seen for 2 years! We had a fairly chilled afternoon just sat chatting. There was a lot of catching up to do, and it was just really good to see them. With all my friends being so far away (well, um, 45 minutes in their case *embarassed*) it’s sometimes easy to forget how generally awesome they are.

We then spent the evening doing a wedding gift list. We’d not been really intending to do one – on the basis that there’s not much we *need*. But the requests came in for one; so we sat down and worked out things that’d be useful, or that we want, but that aren’t insanely expensive. Annoyingly Ikea have no gift-list system, and their gift-card system is a non-online one. What planet are they on?!

*le sigh*

Finally, today’s been spent working on the house; well, more accurately it was spent at work, then in the supermarket, then working on the house. As it’s now ten to 12, I think it’s time for me to head to bed… I’ve run out of plaster and the wall is as smooth as I can manage in my tired state :-/