Don’t worry, this won’t all be cars…
So, as we hauled ass down to Bristol (again) on Monday poor old Chester announced his dissatisfaction with the massive milages he’s been called on to do recently (over 1000 miles extra this month alone) with the disintegration of the exhaust. It appears, from the garage, that the engine mounts have given up the ghost. Ironically, looking for replacement ones I found a website talking about living with a volvo 340 – and one of the things on there was that the engine mounts die. Something I’d not noticed before, but it does explain the slightly bouncy engine which I vaguely noticed when the top of the carb was loose a few days ago.
Unfortunately, when Kathryn went back to collect Chester they couldn’t get him started. Kathryn rang me and reported some worrying things – I rang them and found out they’d been running and starting him in Park. The 340 came with a big hang-around-the-steering-wheel ‘DO NOT START THIS CAR UNTIL YOU’VE READ THE OWNER’S MANUAL SUPPLEMENT’ sign which said – ‘Do not start or run the vehicle in Park’*.
Anyhow, I advised them not to do that – they charged the battery because they’d managed to flatten it, and he started just fine. I collected him, and drove him home, and he ran fine. This morning he got to the petrol station and declined to start. Kathryn rang – I drove ‘becca down there** and he was definately not in a starting mood. I looked under the bonnet to check that nothing had been dislodged or moved by HiQ – pressed the coil leads firmly to check they were seated, but couldn’t see anything. Moved ‘becca so that we could at least push Chester away from the pumps. Sat in Chester to give him ‘one last go’ and there was the nearly-starting-ness of nearly-starting-dom.
A bit more effort at off he went. Running and idling fine. Odd, is what I say. He’s off to Volvo for new engine mounts tomorrow, so I’ll ask them to have a quick look.
Anyhow. So hopefully he’ll be sorted. We need to get Kathryn’s AA cover sorted though, because I can’t so easily ‘pop’ across for when I’m in Brizzle.
Anyhow, yesterday we took Rebecca and headed up to Milton Keynes to see Girlyman – a group Kathryn introduced me to – who are just utterly fantastic. They do incredible things with harmonies (and, apparently suspended fourths and minor seconds – this is where you get to discovered despite Dead Bug Jumping my musical knowledge is as thin as ice) – and are incredibly talented. It’s the first time in years I’ve made it to a gig (seriously, quite a few years. The last gig attempt was Metric – and that was nearly 4 years ago – and I was sick the night of the gig).
It felt really, really good to get back to live music – and this was an exceptionally good gig to start back at – with an intimate venue, sitting one row back we listened as Girlyman talked about the inspirations for their songs – completely rewriting the way that I’ll listen to some of the tracks. Particularly the reasons behind Reva Thereafter – a song I’ve really, really enjoyed (Kathryn has that CD in the car :) ) – and suddenly that song is tinged with much more melancholy. Ah. Discovery – now it makes me want to cry (which Kathryn mentioned on the way home last night – and I agree)… didn’t particularly expect it to keep affecting me the same way today.
Anyhow, as usual I suck at reviewing gigs – but they’re touring the UK at the moment and I heartily recommend people go and see them – it’s also interesting to see them with their (newish) drummer JJ.
They’ve also inspired me to tweak the DBJ format a bit. I’m not sure if it’ll work – depends on cheekyness being answered :) But we’ll give it a go.
Anyhow, I need to go shower because the Volvo’s issues meant I leapt into clothes without showering. Also I should look and see if I can print out my Uni stuff so I can take it to work.
* Because it’s a faux automatic, Park is provided for the Auto drivers so they feel more at home – but is actually achieved by locking the transmission. All fine, except if you rev the engine you’re running it against the auto-engaging clutch with a locked transmission behind it. And depending on your luck either the clutch or the transmission gives :-/ IIRC.
** I have quite a lot of experience starting recalcitrant cars.
