The sun is shining, it’s a beautiful day

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And I’m lying on the sofa. In a bit I’m going to take Vixy (the other DAF) out for a little jaunt to check out the new fuel mixture and brakes. They’re still pulling to the right (odd, since the left is the new cylinder). Hopefully it’ll settle down as the brakes bed in. The tyres on the front are knackered though.

The tyres on the back are, well, as old. So frankly it needs…guess what… four new tyres. But this time, just for fun, even the Minor suppliers don’t have any budget tyres. And frankly, the DAF can cope with budget tyres. The minor’s a bit more perky with 65bhp (not a great deal by modern means, but with cart-suspension at the back and lighter than a light thing on light-day she’s a lot of fun) – and the grotty old 155 Nankangs are feeling their cheapitude. Particularly at speed on the motorway.

The DAF shod with Camacs though is acceptable. Not brilliant, certainly, but acceptable.

I don’t really want to spend 40 quid plus per tyre, and so I’ve had to hunt around a lot, and have managed to come up with a company that says they have Nankang 145/80R14s in stock. If they do, once I’ve ordered, I’ll share then name with everyone. But first we’re going for a little drive-ette, see if all is well.

Plan for today is have a fairly chilled out day, probably poke at the lounge and give it a bit of a clean, paint the window-whatsit in the kitchen; tomorrow is probably going to be fairly full-on-car stuff because the DAF…that doesn’t work any more does it… Jejy’s sucky tubes should be arriving. So Jejy will get ramp’d and have a going over – fiddling with the mixture, installing miles* of new vacuum hoses and whatever. Hopefully new sucky tubes and a tweak to the carb and we’ll be back to running well. I’m wondering if I should have ordered some new pipe to go between the manifold and the intake pipe (oddly DAFs have a flexible bit of tube on one side of the inlet manifold which, presumably, rots like all other rubber.

I’ve got a dinky bit of painting to do today, and I might, just might, have a go at making the steps in the back garden. Could all go horribly wrong, really. At any rate I ought to move off this sofa, because its graviational pull has worked its magic. I have to admit I watched BSG yesterday – fracking brilliant – need to see the next episode (this seems to happen every episode at the moment, it’s all so tense, building to the end. Only it’s not the end, there’s that 2 hour special that’s been shot. So…), the L Word (ack, need to see E09), this morning I watched the Tyre Ecohouse in Grand Designs. It’s awesome.

I would love to build something like that. I’m still more of a straw bale person, but I’m wondering if you could combine the building techniques – do earth sheltered homes have to be all earth-sheltered? Mind you, I wanted (want) to build the tile arch thingie too. I’m so fickle. If I built everything I wanted I’d have tile-arched, timber-frame-and-straw-bale, earth sheltered, recycled tyre & recovered materials eco-house. It’d be a mess. So it really needs to be one or two of those technologies, probably :)

Oh, and I watched house.

I really need to get off my arse and actually do something, really**.

Links for the day:
Bad minister. Stole a biscuit. If you don’t believe in the evidence for evolution and Darwin then you should not be a science minister. Away with you.
If only I wanted to live in Detroit
This music is teh good.

Side point: Mac Still Shiny. Have a fun day folks.

* Well, feet. Technically, I’m told, there’s about 18′ of vacuum hose (split across two sizes) in a DAF44, so that’s what I’ve ordered. In blue silicone tubing. I’ve not had the shipping conformation yet though.
** I did actually patch up my pj’s while I’ve been sat here. Yes, Kate sewed. It’s rare, and not good when you look at the quality, but my PJ’s had a hole in approximately the size of my hand, and were destined for the bin otherwise…

KateWE

Kate's a human mostly built out of spite and overcoming transphobia-racism-and-other-bullshit. Although increasingly right-wing bigots would say otherwise. So she's either a human or a lizard in disguise sent to destroy all of humanity. Either way, it's all good.