Mostly lemon based

Category: Brick

Stuff relating to Brick, the Vauxhall Viva

  • Dolls in pram ≠ Brick

    So, today was a bit insane. At least, I thought it was insane.

    I’m not sure why, but the nurse in charge decided I should be 1st in in Resus. This was actually good, in a lot of ways; because I much more enjoy and am much better when I’m thrown in at the deep end.

    But it was scary++ because, well, not only do I have only a limited clue as to what I’m doing; but also I’ve got next to no Emergency skills. I can’t take blood (although hopefully I can do my assessment this week), I can’t give IV’s unsupervised, I can’t cannulate, and I can’t plaster….

    So it was a bit interesting. I got very good at saying “could you possibly…”

    And “no, but I’ll get someone who can”.

    Thankfully someone much more experienced came in for the Trauma call (a chap with extensive burns). And I stuck to my chest pains, and self-harmers. I did meet a genuine bona-fide gangster; at least according to himself… I must admit when he self discharged I really didn’t care that much…

    After my shift I drove home, although there was a brief pause because Brick randomly decided he didn’t like the rust syrup masquerading as coolant, and thus spat it out. I’ve only seen a car-spitting-out-coolant-old-style once before (Nikki’s Mog) and it’s quite impressive. There was steam pouring (and I do mean pouring) out from the bonnet, from the back of the bonnet (where the vents are) and when I opened it there was a whoosh of more steam. So I shall *change* the coolant before heading up North; although I shan’t flush it.

    It seemed fine after slopping some fresh coolant in so it was probably a stuck thermostat. But I shall be paranoid’ly observing it.

    I finally, incidentally, got my shot in for Snapshot Hunter; ‘ve stuck it below, and I’m quite pleased with it… I’ve got a whole bundle more from the weekend with Kathryn, but I shall maybe upload them tomorrow.

    And to take you into the evening, here’s some links: Funny. Scary.

  • Demonstrable progression

    So, I mentioned the oil leak, but I didn’t mention the coolant. The coolant in the Viva appears to be made by a careful process of combining iron oxide and stale water, and then leaving it standing for; say; 5 or 10 years.
    This is obviously less than ideal. i have, in fact, since I had the car, been intending to flush the cooling system with some coolant flush and then change it for nice fresh shiny coolant. I may even do it twice.

    However, doing so before the trip to the Lakes whilst it seems in many ways a great plan (big stressful journey) invites my paranoia gremlin to pop out. See, last time I took Rebecca to the lakes, and just prior to the trip I flushed the coolant. The car then developed a leak (presumably some shifting bit of rust free’d it) and then in desparation I threw rad-weld in. Rad weld combined the remaining rust to clog up an already knackered coolant line and I got a very dead engine.

    So, paranoia says ‘don’t fiddle with it, it’s working’. So I’ve decided not to. Who can say if it’s the right decision. But since the coolant will probably have to be drained for the oil-leak-solution then I may save it for then.

    Completely unrelated to that is the fact that I made Raspberry and Apple crumble. Well. We’ll see if I made it, if it’s hideous I’ve just wasted nearly 500g of Raspberries. Sadly since they were picked at the weekend, quite a lot of them had gone manky. I think actually it’s because a few of them were just beyond perfectly ripe; and having turned into moudlyberries they were in close contact with many other berries. In the end I think almost 1/4 were inedible. Or at least, I chose not to trust them. Hence it becoming Raspberry and Apple crumble.

    I’m just waiting on dinner coming out of the oven; then the oven needs to cool down a bit; and then I shall have pie!

    Well, crumble.

    It’s weird to cook after so long not cooking. And nice. I miss having a nice kitchen; but frankly I’ve got sod all to complain about really. In fact there’s been some good house news; the woodworm is apparently not active enough to be worth treating. He reckoned it’s an old infestation with some residual activity; basically. And that all houses this age will have that kind of level of activity; most of it where you can’t see. Given the doubled joists, it’s not worth treating it, apparently. I may treat the bits I can still get to,  anyhow.

    I’ve also started grouting. I’d forgotten that I really don’t enjoy grouting much. How I could forget this I’m not sure, but I had. Still, about 1/3rd of the floor is grouted, the last tile is cut and down… So, all is good.

  • There’s good news and uh, some bad.

    So, the good news is that I’ve started making, albeit small, inroads into the chaos in my endeavour to make the house bearable when Kathryn comes back. It’s hardly be welcoming if it still had a Kate-sized hole on the sofa where I’ve been sitting surrounded by bills. I’ve even cleaned the stairs – it was quite horrendous how much shite there was on them. Seriously, it was revolting. Granted it was mostly sawdust and plasterdust, but still.

    Obviously, in my posting frenzy you’ve had the ‘lookie, tiles’; but I have pictures (you’re all thrilled, I can tell)….

    See, tiles!

    I also have proof that there’s a shower door in my bathroom; or at least, a shower door in someone’s bathroom, but I maintain that this is mine and that I put it up. Believe me, no one else would want to claim that they put it up…

    Anyhow, because I took it, and also because it slightly freaked me out when I realised how badly worn it really was, here’s the Viva’s clutch cable (I imagine you’re all barely able to contain your excitement at this point)…

    Yes, it’s frayed. Really frayed. If that had snapped it could have lead to embarassing ‘crunch’ type noises; although I’ve been awfully careful the last week not to sit with my foot on the clutch, as I might be wont to do if I was expecting a light to change… I’m quite proud of that shot, actually, it’s a really nice bit of macro photography, if I do say so myself (and I do). And it stands out really rather well against the aluminium carpet strip. That, incidentally, is my pile of metal that’s waiting for me to make a run to the tip. That run is approaching with some enthusiasm now, as my entire front garden is full of woodworm eaten floorboards.

    So, continuing the good news; the hoover survived. The builders used my Aquavac/Goblin (with my permission), however they neglected to mention that they’d run it ’til the bag split and the entire filter inside gummed up. I’m hoping it’s not toast in motor terms, but it doesn’t smell of burned motor. The filter at least saved it from sucking an entire base full of crappy builder’s rubble through its motor. And in other good news, with substantial effort I managed to retrieve the box-of-filing from the pile of crap. Having cleaned the filing cabinet (it’s still somewhat oily inside), I then spent a “cheerful” hour transferring stuff from the box into the cabinet. The box contained everything that *was* in the cabinet from a looong time ago. I have become aware that I need a shredder, again. I can theoretically shred up to 2002, now; and I can dispose of lots of old utility bills. And looking at how much paperwork I’ve got, that would be really quite useful.

    Anyhow, I’ve not yet started making inroads into the evil that is the ‘to file pile’ (which is in two parts):

    It’s amazing how much paperwork I’ve accrued in 6 months. Obviously there’s buying a house, two jobs, moving, purchasing endless appliances and bits for the house…. Lexx is out, incidentally, because I did the tinyest bit of sorting while I was shifting boxes – and found Lexx 1.0,  which means I now have all the Lexx videos. I think I’m going to sell them because, quite frankly, I can’t be arsed with video anymore. I loved the first season of Lexx, but never really loved it as much after that first season; the original actress (Eva Habermann) was fantastic…and not that the second actress wasn’t good, she just wasn’t Zev.

    Anyhow, so, that’s the good news.

    There is however some bad news.

    The house has woodworm, live doing stuff woodworm. I’d kinda disregarded the woodworm upstairs on the basis of my monitoring station downstairs being, well, unaffected. See, I’d read (somewhere) in my research that the lifecycle was around 3 months – having repeated my check I now find ‘a year’ is more accurate. But anyhow, I’d assumed after 6 months of staring at my masking tape that there wasn’t any activity and I was now safe. Unfortunately, I’ve now found two dinky little round holes in it, so I shall be calling in a woodworm company forthwith to see about fumigating the house. This is, how shall we put it, rather upsetting. At least the joists upstairs were doubled, because I know some of them floorboards that came out were completely rotten, so one must presume some of the joists are infested badly too… Ach.

    And finally, on a rather smaller scale, things continue not to improve on the laptop front… it’s still doing pretty well, given that it’s 8 years old, but at some point I fear it is going to have to be replaced…

  • On the dangers of prevarication

    But first, some news. Wow, those US lesbians with their gangs, and their guns… soon there’ll be no men left…. what do you mean it’s entirely made up?

    Anyhow, on to the topic de jour, prevarication. I got Brick serviced by a very nice garage who I’m actually planning to use again to sort out the oil leak *and* sort out the wheel bearing, because, frankly I’m done doing car maintenance for a while. I have the house, the job and the bike all calling for more time than I have; so the car, the car can be done by someone now I’ve got a garage I trust. And I trust them more now.

    See, on the list of advisories it had ‘heavy oil leak’ (which is true), and ‘rear brakes low’ which is probably true, and ‘Clutch cable needs replacement – badly frayed’ (along with the wheel bearing being ‘slightly noisy’). So I ordered a wheel bearing and a clutch cable… And they sat in the lounge, then they sat in the corridor. And I prevaricated. Did I book it in *now* or next week? Should I do it myself? I prodded at the do it myself option and didn’t like it, so I left it…

    Today I finally decided I would do it myself. Remarkably there was no swearing, even when the circlip disappeared down behind the ‘carpet’ on the driver’s side. There were several utterances about how insane Vauxhall are. But 2.5 hours after I started the car has a new clutch cable. And not a moment too soon; I see now that they weren’t joking when they said ‘badly frayed’. Of what appear to be 8 or 9 strands (each made up of many smaller strands) only two were intact, and the cable looked terrifyingly thin. Next time they tell me something’s in need of replacement real soon now, then I shall believe them :-)

    So, maybe I should order some brake shoes, but that really *is* a job I could and should do myself. *sigh*.

    Not today though, because once I’ve had this cup of tea over here, I shall be commencing the tile-a-thon in earnest, brand spanking new RCD in hand (or at least, plugged in). And roll of kitchen paper for my nose which has either taken offence to the dust (I suspect, ‘cos it was lousy yesterday), or has rediscovered hayfever because today it’s hot-like-woah. Actually, that’s not *strictly* true, because it is in fact bearable outside. And inside almost pleasant. But the weather is being it’s usual inimitable and unpredictable self; having gone from cold-wet-torrential rain over the past few days to tarmac-meltingly-hot sun today.

    I’m hoping it’s dust, because new filters are en-route for the dyson (and actually looking at them, that might explain it’s lack of suck, but I still feel I should give it a once over) and a pack, an entire pack of bags for the Aquavac/Goblin. I never had this problem when I used the Hoover Junior all the time; it just worked… ‘cept when it needed a new belt… ‘course it did cover the room in dust, but hey.