Mostly lemon based

Category: General

  • Now, I have no right to comment, really.

    Given the UK’s current prime minister’s sad inability to take any notice of the will of the people (whilst I’m wary of the people having too much control, it’s easy for a large group of people, say the citizens of a nation, to get riled up and angry about something which – given 6 months of consideration they’d say ‘oh yeah, that was dumb’; but our current government seems to ignore the UK population completely), and my personal opinion for Mr Blair’s policies I can hardly say the UK is any (f**king) prize when it comes to international politics at the moment. But, at any rate, I came across this link yesterday; which introduces a candidate for the US Presidential election (via [info]inspector_81) – and I found myself in the disconcerting position of largely agreeing with an American politician.

    I mean, I agree with a lot of what Al Gore has to say about the environment, but since he’s not running then…

    So then I came on this morning and [info]bluwyngz has posted a link to the full transcript, which bizarrely I’ve read…and was surprised. I mean he sounds confident to the point of being irritating, but when you read the transcript of the talk he says things like: ” What we need to do is to begin to deal with the rest of the world as equals. And we don’t do that.”, I come over all surprised.

    So, anyhow; yes, interesting candidate. Still – he’s pretty much got to be better than Bush.

  • A full on whine

    So, today I got moved. I went to ward L; ward L is very different to mine, younger more mobile patients, while it’s got a not dissimilar number of beds (I think 4 more) they’re spread out a *lot*, because it’s in a more modern building.

    It’s also got diarrhoea and vomitting – I suspect they picked me to move because I’m off now for 2 days, so if I get it it’s my free time that’s stuffed, not their rota. But perhaps I’m cynical.

    At any rate – the day went more-or-less smoothly, but was hectic in the way that only wards which are vary short of staff can be. Much like my own ward… I ploughed through a slow drug round (having to check drugs because I don’t know what they do slows me down; using two different drug trolleys where I don’t know where the drugs are, that slows me down; and not knowing where the fridge was, that slowed me down too).

    I didn’t get my full break (pas de change), and ‘cos they made me keep the water miles from my bay (it’s a *huge* ward, and a good 40 second walk from end to end – which when you’re busy means that the idea of getting a drink just keeps getting put back) my sore throat is back with avengeance. This afternoon it was pretty much gone, when I got to work. Now it’s back to really-frigging-hurting to swallow, which is quite distressing. I’ve got a stinking headache, ‘cos I didn’t drink enough, and the icing on the cake – just before I left I heard the nurse in charge of the night shift thanking (gushingly) the two of the other nurses from another ward. As I left, I got *nada*. Nothing. I said bye, and she blanked me.

    It made me feel *so* valued.

    So, that’s my whine.

    On the plus side, I’ve come home and Kathryn’s online and she’s busy cheering me up – a lot :-) She rocks my little world.

  • Progress, soreness, and tiredness.

    I am uber tired now. I have spent the day achieving this:

    See? No? Well, you can examine the world’s most dull photoset if you like. I’ve endeavoured to make it marginally less dull by attempting to cram a silly number of notes on some of the pictures, but really this set exists in that special space for doing something dull when you’re already bored.

    At any rate, I’ve made much progress today – I’ve now got only one huge box to move in the kitchen and the dishwasher. Then I need to empty the kitchen cupboard, remove it from the wall, and uh, find homes for everything in it. Once that’s done, I need to stick the tools out in the shed. And uh, *then* I need to move the washing machine.

    Hopefully this job will be done within the week.

    Then we can move on to the other works – the more major ones – specifically the doubling of the floorjoists in the pre-bathroom. I’m not sure how that’s going to work, really. Not sure at all. Nor how much it’ll cost. I guess we’ll find out.

    Unfortunately all this box moving has left me somewhat tired. Exhausted, actually – which I suspect is related to the sore throat, which I’m blaming on the night shifts… At any rate, I’m tired, so I think it’s time to rest…

  • In memory of a small bundle of insanity.

    I used to live with Rachel, Rachel had a cat. This cat was called Daisy. Daisy features in many of my tales of Bristol, largely because she was the most cute & vocal – but also entirely insane creature I’ve ever had the good fortune to come across.

    I always imagined that she still thought she was the size of a tiger, occasionally debating whether to eat us for lunch and then being shocked by the failure in scale; and sometimes she’d let loose with a string of different meows – on one occasion around 30 seconds of solidly different ones – and then stare at you as if to say “and what are you going to do about it”?!

    She was clumsy as all hell, inside the house she’d misjudge gaps, distances, heights, and yet would scale the trees in the garden without fear. She’d bring in animals to ‘play with’ but they’d frequently be alive and unharmed flying round the house. And she was a quick learner; when I started doing shift work and started to get up at 5, she quickly realised that I was the place to be early in the morning, because I’d feed her first. Then she took to standing on me, her nose an inch from my nose which would allow me to wake up and have the biggest shock.

    When I worked from home she also picked up that Ctrl-Alt-Del was an effective way to get my attention.

    But my favourite thing about her was that she was just nuts.

    Back then I had a webcam, and she’d occasionally feature in the idents which a little script I wrote put up when there wasn’t any activity and so, in Memory of a cute bundle of insanity, here’s a shot from way back when

    Daisy passed away on the 1st of May, 2007 – and the world has lost one of the finest cats to prowl this planet.

  • Nights, Days and Disappearing walls

    I’m tired. Not exhausted, but tired. It was my second night last night, the first was one of those shifts where remarkably, everything gets done. Apart from a few issues here and there, it went smoothly and was as relaxing a night shift as you could hope for.

    Night the second, and we understand how few nurses 2 really are. I arrived to a patient with high blood pressure – and no plan as to what to do about it; then his heart slowed – 40 beats / minute is slow, not incompatible with life slow, but slow – especially for someone in their 80s – he managed to drop as low as 36 at one point. He was joined by the chap with the full-body-and-limb rash, high temperature and vomiting. Lots of vomiting. I had been slightly worried about him since coming on duty – he seemed very drowsy (which wasn’t mentioned in the notes) and looked very hot – although our crappy under-arm/mouth thermometers (what posessed them to take away our in-the-ear ones I’m not sure) weren’t picking up any temperature; and appeared to have a rash covering most of his body – which was also not mentioned in the notes.

    Because I’m paranoid I kept an eye on him – and his temperature rapidly went up, followed by the vomiting restarting. By the end of the shift it looked like he’d had another stroke, and despite trying for most of the night I couldn’t reach the next of kin. My opinion of the nurse I worked with last night has gone up immeasurably though. She’s excellent with really sick patients – and it was more due to her efforts that the patient stabilised than the doctor – the Dr was very slow to turn up and then didn’t want to stay because it was the end of his shift. Fine, I can understand, but don’t say you’ll be up in a minute for an hour and a half and then say ‘oh, I can’t see him I’ve got to go home’. Thankfully, quite a lot of pressure on him later, he saw the patient and realised the patient was actually very sick. By which time the senior nurse I was with had done a lot of what he was telling us needed to be done.
    I’m really hoping tonight’s a bit quieter. Because it’s only 2 nurses and 2 HCAs on at night – basic patient care disappeared last night. I didn’t get to sit down until 4am when I’d got my sick patients (and the new patient) settled and stable (I started at 8pm), by which time I was fairly much exhausted.

    On the plus side I slept a lot when I got home. Well, by a lot, 5 hours. I may even allow myself to use some of the change lying around the house to get me something to eat, because quite frankly I’m a whole heap of tired, and the idea of standing and cooking for 20 minutes appeals to me not-at-all. Whilst I know I can’t afford it, I am just so tired that that isn’t really featuring in my thought process. Especially while there’s change sat on the surface near me.
    The one nice thing about nights is the break, during which I’ve been listening to NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me which meets my criteria for ‘terribly funny’ – and is I’m sure very irritating for those nearby as I break out into peals of laughter. I’ve also been reading some Jeanette Winterson (specifically the Powerbook) she has an incredible style – it’s kind of like reading poetry in the form of prose (which I think is how Kathryn may have described it to me, but that description sticks with me as I’m reading). So that’s actually been quite good :-)

    The Days have also not been so bad – despite my thin thin curtains I’ve actually managed to sleep okay; getting around 5 hours each day, which is pretty good for me. Not enough though, in so far as I’ve got a sore throat. Not a real stinker of a sore throat, but a sore throat none-the-less. Last night I consumed most of a packet of Halls (given that I couldn’t actually stop moving enough to ‘drink plenty’). My glands feel like cashew nuts, seriously, so I’m thinking that I’m really not-that-well. Still, one more night and it’s over.

    Also, in the ‘days’ I’ve managed to sort out the builder. He’s still not come up with a complete quote, he wants to come and do the chimney (200 – 300 quid), and while he’s here that day look at the rest of the work that needs doing. This of course means I need to make the door to the lounge shut – and ideally tape a plastic sheet over the space – I also need to get the back door to open, and clear the back office at least partially.

    Anyone want to come give me a hand tomorrow, thursday and at the weekend?

    I also need to clear some of the kitchen so as I can move the dishwasher and then the washing machine on Monday night. Oh the fun. Building work is such a joy. I should feel more positive I suppose, but I think the tiredness is winning at the moment. I wonder if I need to take down the cupboard as well, probably…

    It is incidentally the wall behind the washing machine – the chimney breast – which is coming out:

    It’s one of those things which is disproportionally irritating, despite notionally occupying not-that-much kitchen, it’s actually a complete nightmare in terms of layout – and losing it, whilst it will cost a couple of hundred quid makes it that much easier to lay out the kitchen and make effective use of the space. Actually, the excitement has started to come back, looking at that photo, this is the first step in getting the kitchen I want in the house I live in :-)
    So, anyway, in the name of entertaining myself I found this video, which is fantastic. And I found this trailer which is for a documentary I’d really like to see – anyone able to wave me a copy from somewhere?

  • There are some sums you shouldn’t do

    When I was chatting to Kathryn we were talking about pay – and I calculated my rate of pay, on average, per hour last month. It was the most depressing thing I’ve done for a long, long time.

    Having come home and thought about posting it – I thought I’d do the sum using the actual figure on my payslip – I get paid £7.81 after tax, per hour (or £10.14 before tax. At least I make double figures).

    *sighs*

    I kinda wish I’d not worked it out now.

  • Woozy Coffee Monster

    So, I’ve not been drinking so much coffee recently, but today I ended up having my usual breakfast cup, and a huge mocha in Starbucks (don’t all tell me off at once…), then some ice-tea in a cafe on the Strand and finally another huge mocha from Upper Crust before catching the early morning train back. See, I needed to stay awake ‘cos I’m on nights tomorrow (well, technically today), so I need to sleep late – aiming for 5, 5:30ish heading to bed.

    But all that coffee’s keeping me awake in a woozy ‘are my legs still attached’ / ‘I don’t feel 100% brilliant’ kind of way. I was pretty good…until I got home. But where was I? And what was I doing in the Strand?

    Before I tell you, I have to introduce to what I originally thought might be a myth in my bathroom. But it turned out to be a moth:

    It came in late a couple of nights ago, and lurked there until the morning when I scooped it into a glass and set it free. I also have the urge to share this with you:

    My choice of cheese seems less, well, appealing when described like that.

    So yeah.

    Well, this weekend has been something that’s been approaching and which I’ve been both excited and nervous about. See, this weekend I met Kathryn’s mom. She’s over from the U.S. for a week (I think, my vague memory is vague on details), before heading off on holiday further afield, and so I had a chance to meet her.

    Given how much I care about Kathryn, meeting her mom was kinda important – and so I’ve been nervously waiting for it… Kathryn came down yesterday (well, technically the day before, given that it’s technically Sunday) and we uh, well, went to Kwik-Fit. Normally I ring round and find the best price for tyres, but I only decided I wanted new tyres on the way to the station (I was going to get part-worn’s, but at around 1500 miles a month it’s probably a false economy), hence Kwik-Fit was used. Brick now has semi-decent, good tyres. This is better than the cracked sidewall and had-reached-chunks-flaking-off-of-the-tread-10-year-old-remoulds that were on there. Uh, then we headed home and curled up watching Shooting Fish (the DVD edit of which is different to the theatrical release, sadly. I am slightly annoyed by that).

    Aaaanyhow, so, we got up this morning and headed in to London (for those of you wondering how this fits in with my economising; today was my last fling before stopping. The last prescheduled events day) (random aside – can you tell I’m tired? – the nipod is working well, and interesting to have because I put not only music I really like on it, but stuff I thought I should listen to more, which means I’ve just really enjoyed Maria Mena, Mogwai and Metric – all of which I was aware I liked, but I’ve never really listened to enough. Anyhow.). We went to meet Kathryn’s mom at Heathrow. Normally I drive there, but a quick costing of tickets indicated it was cheaper for us to get the train there and then go from Heathrow (after Kathryn patiently pointed out to me that Heathrow has both a train and an Underground station. I’m convinced I was being terribly irritating, unintentionally, because my brain wasn’t working and I kept trying to help but getting things wrong ;-) ).

    Despite British Network Rail’s new time telling system which appears to be based on Hexadecimal we got there on time.

    Or more accurately, we knew her plane was late and we got there before it arrived, which was our aim.

    Meeting Kathryn’s mom turned out to be not nearly as scary as my fears about it – mostly because Kathryn’s mom is really lovely, and very friendly, and also she failed to have any pointy sticks (nor the opinion of my friend Sophie, who’s always said she’d interrogate any lesbian suitors for her daughter far more thoroughly than any heterosexual suitors… because ‘she knows what lesbians are like’). And we went on to have a really nice day in London, munching on incredibly fine food at a cafe near Paddington before Kathryn and I headed off and obtained tickets for Evita… snapping this photo on the way:

    …I’ve not been to a musical for years – and the last one was so long ago and I was so young that I can’t actually remember it – although I have a feeling it might have been a production of Kiss Me, Kate. Anyhow, Evita was just plain enjoyment for me, and it was nice to get dressed up in a posh frock (well, moderately) and go out. :-)

    Afterwards we headed to another cafe where we had, uh, largely the same food – and chatted s’more; before we wandered back to their hotel and eventually I headed home.

    The journey home turned out to be a trifle eventful; first the train I was going to catch was cancelled – not a huge problem, there was another 20 minutes later (which meant 20 more minutes with Kathryn :-) ), everyone seemed to be running to get on to the train which seemed odd, but the reason became apparent once I was there. I got one of the last few seats, and watched as people just kept arriving.

    Eventually, sardine like, the train driver having tried to convince people going to the first three stations to take a different train (leaving 10 minutes later) we pulled out. Not that I cared, I had a nice seat and there was no one who might conceivably be considered a ‘give up your seat for’ person on the train; at least not within my range of vision which granted was limited by asses and rucksacks. However, within my hearing range was an argument which turned into a full-on brawl with some drunk bloke pulling another drunk bloke out of the train, where they proceeded to kick merry hell out of each other until one collapsed onto the station platform.

    I’d just decided that I really ought to check on the bloke who’d lost the fight, given his lying prostrate on the ground and not getting-back-up-ness (given my code of conduct I’m required, actually, to stop and help people who need the aid of a nurse) when the train doors shut and we pulled away. Fortunately his friends appeared to have phones and so on and so forth, but really. Some people should not be allowed alcohol.

    Also disturbing – the bloke I sat down opposite, whilst he was polite to me, he had two tattoos, one of crossed confederate flags with ‘THE [SOUTH?] WILL RISE AGAIN’ and the second tattoo which said ‘[covered by shirt sleeve]… to the blacks’. Which as an ending to a tattoo when combined with a pair of confederate flags, well, somehow left me feeling faintly unnerved.

    Ah well. At any rate, I had a fantastic day; and am now phenomenally tired.

  • 1,800kWh you say?

    I got my electricity bill today. Sadly it masqueraded as a gas bill, and I expected when I opened it to see a figure requesting a 2 figure amount. When I looked and saw the three figure amount I nearly fainted. Once I realised it was my electricity bill I entered a state which merely could be described as ‘oh god how am I going to pay that’.

    It’s actually about what I expected….only it’s about 1,800kWh short. Or 160 quid. For some reason they’ve used the average for the months when I wasn’t living here (I presume) and for when the house was unoccupied (I’d suspect 6-8 months of emptyness). It has made me look at my electricity usage – although there’s not much I can cut back on I suspect I might be able to get away with switching the water heater on in the morning – although I may only get a luke warm shower, it’s better than 3kW for 12 hours which is what I *have* been doing.

    And whilst I know that I couldn’t really have cut back over winter – I could over the last month have been a bit more frugal in my heater use.

    But I suspect that one of the main costs is the washing machine – or more the tumble drier. Whilst I can now hang clothes out; this winter has been a fracking nightmare for drying stuff, the dryer often having to run for hours at a time so as to get stuff to *completely* dry before I took it out. Being a combined washer drier, the drier isn’t 100% stunning.

    At any rate, fortunately for me NHS Professionals rang today, and I should be getting my fast-track application for me to do bank/pseudo-agency work; but until I’ve cleared my bills and credit card debts, the Pyoor Financial Recovery scheme will be operating. This means: no eating out, no more ‘I’m feeling a bit bored so I’ll buy a book/DVD/fun thing’, eating a less exciting (but still balanced) diet, no more trips to see friends (although I’m still going to go and see Kathryn; it’s not that she’s more important than the rest of you guys…but…well, you understand), and only the specific list of things I need to do to keep the car on the road, the tyre for the bike (I need to maintain being able to get to work), and a couple of commitments I made before this debacle began.
    I will probably start riding the bike again, if I can make it run okay, because it burns less fuel.

    I do, however, have to change the tyres on the car. They’re all cracky and nasty and they’re looking distinctly past it. I’ve racked up 3,000 miles on tyres that were I not so bloody broke I’d’ve ditched the day I got the car, so I think my luck has been pushed far enough. I will hopefully get them changed tomorrow.

    *sighs*

    I got my pay slip today and y’know what? It was bloody depressing. By the time I’d deducted all the things that need to come out of it I’m back to being broke and the month’s not even started.
    It’s really quite stressful.

    On the plus side, Kathryn’s back tomorrow. *smiles*

    Other news: I’ve been sharing this link with people, whilst some of the statements are a bit of a reach, it’s still quite scary. And this is just downright depressing.

    As an antidote to them, have this…

  • So, a bit of an update

    It’s a bit huge today, lots of photos and all, so rather than inflict them on my entire f-list, the post is under a cut. But for all of you to enjoy, here’s a picyture…

    So, Kathryn ([info]bluwyngz) came down last week, in fact, a week ago today. Having ensconced ourselves in Slough – funds for the journey to Bristol and back (and foodage while there) being somewhat lacking from my bank account (hell, funds for anything are lacking and a certain NHS related staffing are working at that special speed at which the NHS functions – thus preventing me from obtaining bank shifts which is somewhat frustrating). Anyhow. I was a little concerned by this turn of events – Slough being hardly a cultural mecca – and fearing that Kathryn might get somewhat bored with, well, Slough.

    But actually it all turned out fabulously. The weather was kind to us, and we headed out to Windsor Great Park – on the way there encountering this rather nice picture and then…

    The park itself is pretty vast, considering I live all of 20 minutes away and had no idea about it’s existence (I’m sure someone ([info]jordax, probably) has told me about it, but hey, I have a short memory) and yet is bigger than Windsor itself, well, I’m surprised. Anyhow, we wandered in and here in all their (edited) glory are some of the pics.

    It was gorgeously sunny, and the current

    [info]snapshot_hunter comp is ‘dappled’ so I spent ages trying to get ‘dappled’ shots:

    Given that it’s a big old park with lots of big old trees, there’s plenty of storm damaged trees – with their broken jagged points scoring the sun bleached sky.

    I spent ages photographing this tree, but I never did quite get the shot I was after.

    Of course, since it was sunny++, I could actually use the Macro on my camera. I’ve not played with it very much, it needs a lot of light, and obviously, tiny focal distance. People who’ve seen my ladybird (ladybug) shot from the urbex set know I’ve been playing with it, but hey, here’s some tree bark which had a gorgeous texture:

    So, playing with the macro in a park leads to ‘flowers’, obviously. But not being in a great position (I was on the rather steep bank of a little dinky stream) meant that I wasn’t that great at checking the focus on some shots. This was intended to be a shot of the purple flower, but I really love the way it’s come out, actually. The focus is not where you expect, and the grass looks fantastic :-)

    I debated whether that was ‘dappled’ but really, it just doesn’t scream ‘dappled’ at me. It wasn’t the last time I played with the macro function, oh no:

    However, on the dappled front I have to say I felt this next shot achieved dappled quite well; in fact, assuming the competition’s not closed, this’ll be my entry.

    I won’t say as it’s the very definition of dappled, but it’s pretty much dappled as far as I’m concerned. Anyway, we continued our quest (which was, I suspect, to have a very nice walk in the park) and both continued to snap away with our respective cameras…

    And I continued to play a game I’d not even realised I was playing – I think it was called ‘how many macro shots can you take in a day’?

    This was another shot I took in my quest to get dapplement, but I wasn’t quite so keen on this one…

    One of my other hobbies of the day was candid shots of Kathryn. Sadly, quite a lot of these came out with her being small and far away, or alternatively ‘not hugely flattering’. In many ways the next shot went horribly wrong, but I actually really like the result:

    Shortly after this, we decided to rise above it all…by climbing a tree. I love climbing, I used to scale rocks and walls and trees as a kid, and though there was a latent fear of heights lurking in my conciousness I overpowered it by sheer force of will. Apparently, my will isn’t quite so strong these days; that and I’d forgotten about it until I got into the tree.

    And when I say ‘climbing a tree’, Kathryn climbed, with grace – or at least agility, she shot up the tree, perching high up in the branches

    I for my part kinda scrabbled in – intially and rather startlingly dropping to the ground (having first impacted the trunk of the tree as I threw myself to clear the sign which I *really* didn’t want to land on) – it was only a few feet (about 5?) to the bottom branch, but my arms really weren’t that keen on the concept of me going into it. A second attempt lead to me scrabbling and in a terribly undignified way landing up on my desired branch. Happy I was, and then I looked at the teeny tiny drop and my brain said ‘no Kate, you’re scared’. Having beat the fear into a small mushy pulp I then attempted to ascend… a bit of scrabbling later and my fear gland worked it’s magic again, and I decided to stay where I was. Comfortable on the lowest branch. There I sat, happily contemplating ways to screw my subconscious out of ever speaking to me again, and enjoying the rather pleased sensation of having at least made it *into* the tree.

    Clearly tree climbing is something I shall have to re-skill at, because it was great fun – although I don’t bounce *quite* so well as I used to, and we won’t discuss my descent which left me with scrapes and bruises that had my colleagues at work much amused.

    Kathryn went on to climb another tree, me – feeling a little sore – I rested on a bough which had formed a natural hammock shape, lovely it was. The evening light was casting funky shadows and Kathryn was being silly…

    As we headed back we encountered a bird we’d spent some time trying to get pictures of earlier; and this time we both got good shots of it

    We also encountered some terribly irritating black-what-are-they-birds. Irritating because they were quite interesting, cute and had a policy of only flapping their wings or flying about if you were pointing the camera at another bird. To be fair, it was getting a bit less light, and quite a lot of mine – zoomed to maximum zoomage – came out rather blurry.

    But there was one…

    And then of course we did some urbexing (which I ramble about here)

    So that was my days with Kathryn, in a very restrained journal-publishable not nearly as Kathryn-centred as it would be – way.

    Anyhow, so since Kathryn’s been I’ve been trying to be a little more organised in my approach to the house, and my life – mostly because she’s introduced me to Performance Poetry, some other indiefeeds, and Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me (which is similar in concept to Radio 4’s ‘The News Quiz’ – why isn’t that podcasted? Grr); and I’ve restarted listening to Coverville. Which means that I need time to listen to these things – but also I need to get on with the house, now I’ve managed to encourage my builder that I asked to quote to maybe send me a quote.

    So, I dug up some enthusiasm and dug great chunks out of the walls in the spare room – and then went around filling them back in – hopefully post sanding (and there’s going to be a lot of sanding) it should look a hell-of-a-lot better. I still need to do more, but I’ve left it two days to try and ensure it’s really dry.

    I also returned Gardenia from the wild rebels to a state of harmonious…well, I’d say democracy, but it’s more of a dictatorship. With the aid of the heavy artillery (namely a 25 quid lawnmower from Homebase, and a similarly cheap and nasty strimmer) the grass has been reduced from ‘field like’ to merely ‘slightly untidy’. The weeds are also an even length now, too. I’m not sure you’re meant to mow beds filled entirely with weeds, but I kinda did. The mower is pretty effective – but the motor attrociously balanced leading to a feeling like riding a motorcycle flat-out down the motorway; vibey. And the strimmer is similarly equipped with the Vibratortron 3000 motor. I struggled to do too much with the strimmer because it actually made my hands hurt to keep in on too long. Still, thankfully the garden’s small enough – and once my mum’s had her way there probably won’t be much in the way of grass. Some, because I like grass, but not that much.

    And finally in my enthusiastic streak, I attacked Brick’s headlamp switch. I’m not sure what made me decide to do that, but I’m incredibly grateful that I did – for whilst my old switch looked in good shape

    That top – which appeared in such good shape hid a nasty, nasty secret.

    For the last few days I’ve had this faint idea that I could smell burning electrics – just occasionally. I’d started to put it down to paranoia – but also started to bump up the list of things to do the need to look at the state of the slightly flakey headlamp switch (it’d made a crunching noise once, and since that day hadn’t quite worked right). I’m really thankful that I did look at it today. The insulation on the connector was black and charred, a big chunk of it missing completely; the headlamp connector as you can see above and below black and charred. The paper’s even clearly started to scorch.

    There could have been an electrical fire – which would probably have been terminal; because it would have been under the dashboard – and just the sort of fire which puts and end to old cars. Anyway, the switch has gone, the connector’s been cleaned, and hopefully things are now sorted. Big thanks to PSL from the Vauxhall Viva Owners Club for the for-the-price-of-postage replacement switch.

    Anyhow, if you made it this far, congratulations. I’ll try and be a bit more regular with my updates :-)

  • Urbexing – Slough Abandoned

    So, I went urbexing with Kathryn (I shall post about my fantastic 4 and a half days later); and this is the result.

    Some dull locationy shots, and then some better shots…

    The carpark entrance is blocked both by some barriers and some attractive concrete blocks. They’re also scattered around the back of the building (or, I guess, the side – since the back is a demolished factory).

    The building’s pretty well sealed up – in fact, as we’ll see later it’s insanely well sealed up.

    The little brick garden contains a little gift for rats and mice.

    And so, on to the slightly more urbexy photos:

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    Through a tiny little hole in the shutters you could see inside. It was empty:

    These are the blocks – cylinders – which appeared to be filled with concrete. This partially disintegrated one shows the truth…

    And here’s the excessive security surrounding what appeared to be an old side entrance to the building. I really don’t quite understand what an (ex)sofa supermarket needs with huge barbed wire fences and floodlights, but hey.

    So, round real the back of the building was an almost completely demolished factory(?). Get yourself ready for some more cliches

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    And here’s a bit of the local wildlife:

    Slightly bigger versions are here.