Mostly lemon based

Category: Moggie

Stuff directly related to my Beloved Moggie Minor

le Weekend

So, despite the persistent sore throat (which has lead me to be worried about whether I got something icky in the small cut I found on my finger during one night shift (and hence whether I should have done an incident form and gone to occupational health); I have to remind myself that I had the sore throat *before* the cut, and therefore my paranoia should shut the f*ck up) we held a pretty darn spiffy Thanksgiving.

Nikki and Kate supplied turkey, James some truly delicious wine, and us the veg, the cooking space and the, uh, space. Our house isn’t huge – but we managed to squeeze 5 around the table without too much difficulty – and thanks to Kathryn’s careful scheduling the food all landed up being cooked and ready to eat at the right time. We had a traditional US dinner consisting of Turkey (one of the rare occasions we’ve cooked meat, although I let Nikki do all the prep ;) ), Sweet potato casserole, Sage Cornmeal biscuits (anyone know where you can get Cornmeal in the UK? We brought back an entire kg of it from the States – in our case), Home made stuffing spicy sausage and sage stuffing, Cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, Gravy, Wine, Schloer & Root Beer… and for desert, made with fresh pumpkin – Pumpkin pie with whipped cream / pseudocream.

It was a vast amount of food. We have, as is traditional, a fridge half-full of turkey. Yesterday Kathryn made one of our pet meals, Artichoke and Cheese Tart – but replaced some of the onion with… Turkey. Today I’m going to have a second slice of tart for lunch and some… Turkey :)

We attempted to fob off much Turkey on Nikki and Kate, and later on James, as well as some of the remaining produce from the Fried breakfast for the day following (Pancakes, Sausages/Beans/Hash Browns etc, which Nikki very generously cooked).

So much food!

It was a delight, though, to see everyone and have everyone here. I have new admiration for dog owners though. Pepper and Eddie occupied our house for one day – and very well behaved dogs they both are too – but the amount of hair and dirt they left behind is truly astonishing. Our venerable and aged Dyson DC01 wept tears of frustration as it attempted to suck and beat the hairs off the carpet*; and the sheer quantities of hair that we swept up in the kitchen – well – I am much impressed by those who keep dogs and keep their houses clean. I’ve no idea how you do it. I do, vaguely** recall that when living with Daisy there was an amazing amount of fur-deposits around the house, and that vacuuming was often a multi-bag-emptying job (with the then quite shiny DC02).

Anyhow, we spent the evening engaged in a War on Terror which – amazingly – we (the coalition of Nikki, James, Kathryn and I) beat down the terrorists (Kate – who managed to at one point have Terrorist cells in virtually every country). James wishes it to be known that while the Coalition won, he won the most*** ;)

Sunday, Kathryn and I had a fairly lazy day (apart from the hoovering, sweeping and laundry) leading in to a week of work in which my shifts are ‘not great’. Two long days**** and two late shifts. This weekend just gone was the last and final weekend I get off until after Xmas – the only reason I have a weekend off then is to prepare for nights. And to ice the cake of awful shifts – Kathryn is off for two weeks over Christmas – Christmas week – which I’m working (except the weekend after) and New Year’s week – which I’m on nights. The day she goes back to work is my first day off after nights.

Bloody fantastic that is :(

The only compensation is that while December is a 3 week month pay-wise and January a convenient 6 week month (urk!) then the pay I get in January should be less painful for it because I should get a bucketload of enhancements. Making it through the December / January months is always somewhat difficult. I am faintly tempted to move my pay straight into my savings account when it comes in, and give it back to myself just before Xmas (an idea which only just popped into my head).

And, can we all have our ‘make it a nice day and Kate-be-well’ heads on for Friday – ‘cos ‘beccamog really needs a service, and however much I try and put it off it’s time and I should do it. Even if it’s bloody freezing (like today :( ).

As a side point – changing your name is complicated as a Registered nurse – especially when people randomly say things like ‘hey; your civil cermony certificate isn’t signed’ and you go ‘oh, no it isn’t, arse’. Virtually everyone’s accepted it except NHS Professsionals, which makes it doubly complicated because my name on the Register has now changed. Anyhow, jobs to do today include faxing my statement of entry (from the Nursing and Midwifery Council) to all and sundry and also ringing Cumbria’s Registrars and saying ‘oi, should our Civil Partnership Certificate be signed’?

* although I think its filters probably need changing again – what with us having had builders in and much dust being sucked through the poor benighted object.

** all too well, actually

*** Having all of North and South America under his control

**** Sort of my choice.

2/12/2008
Unadulterated warbling

So, more from the delayed update fairy.

Today Kathryn awoke me with a kiss and the information that Obama had won the USÂ election. IÂ was hopeful but wary, considering that I’d spent some of yesterday watching the video / reading the Rolling Stone article on Republican maneuvering to remove nearly 20% of votersÂ in some areas. And listening to NPR yesterday the discussion of malfunctioning machines, and then reading the news last night and finding that optical scanners were causing problems… well… it all boiled down to me not being utterly convinced that the election would go the way the voters intended.

But all that’s in the past – although I think some true electoral reform may be needed – in regards of making sure those who are registered to vote can vote, and maybe kicking Diebolt’s arse for manufacturing such attrocious voting machines :)

At any rate, it’s pleasing news. Maybe the world can get on with moving forward into a nice, sensible future, rather than attempting to bring back the inquisition.

So, on the topic of local news; Kathryn and I have been making use of wedding gifts – we tried out the new teapot a while ago and it was excellent – the cool thing about it is you can stop the brewing process; so once the tea’s ready, it stays in the pot ready, rather than going yicky. That, and it looks cool too. It is the Bodum teapot – much in the line of the cafetiers, but for tea. In fact, you probably could use the cafetier to make tea, should you wish. I may indeed try that at some point, for a one cup pot of tea.

We’ve also used the new mixer; it’s very, very nice. It does really quite yummy dough – and the metal bowl can stand near the fire being as we have no ‘warm place’ (i.e. there’s no airing cupboard) to put the dough in to rise. In it we made Calzones, which are yummy, and enabled us to christen our new baking tray (well, cookie tray, technically). And yesterday we had our first pasta experiment – which also seemed to go fairly well. I didn’t quite get the mix right in terms of consistency, and have realised I don’t need to bother with the hand mixing bit; I can just dump it all in with the dough hooks and it can do all the faffing. But, once cooked it tasted like pasta (pasta is just egg and really, really fine flour. Who knew!); and IÂ suspect that given this (mixer related) information we may be able to produce pasta somewhat quicker.

The pasta maker got christened yesterday too – although we need something to clamp it to; so I suspect in future I’ll make pasta on the dining table because yesterday it was a two person job to make pasta (‘cos it kept sliding around).

I was going to post a picture of the pasta, because IÂ was quite proud (a million italians are weeping right now), but unfortunately I’ve no idea what I did with the batteries from my camera. Not that they’re really working now – it’s on it’s third set and they’re nearly dead – I ought to take a whole bunch for recycling because it slaughters them. I’m not quite sure how or why, but they end up lying in the gutter after about 6 months of use; they still take an age to charge, but the camera only works for about 30 shots or 8 flash shots before they give up and start crying.

But I still can’t afford a shiny new SLR, so another set of batteries will have to be sought.

In other, other, news; IÂ appear to have sourced a 3.9 ratio Diff for the minor.Â This will mean (a) she’ll go faster for less revs (the original diff is 4.22:1);Â (b) she’ll have a diff which isn’t producing little shards of metal as we go along (which is, I think we can all agree, a bad thing); and that (c) IÂ need to get off my arse and sort a gearbox.Â The diff in question needs reconditioning, but honestly?Â 3.9 Diffs don’t come up *that*Â often, (3.7 Diffs even less so); so one that needs some new bearings is quite honestly a good find.

I’ve stuck a post on the MMOC to see if someone will pallet me a slightly knackered old gearbox – and if they will I may have to take over a spot of floor and strip and rebuild it. It’s a little scary, but me and my trusty Morris Manual (and a selection of tools)Â should be able to manage it. No, forget that; we will be able to manage it.

Sadly, the DAFÂ has developed a new noise; although the DAFÂ owners club reckon it might not be such a disasterous noise as IÂ first thought – so the Minor’s due a service, and the DAF is due a service, and IÂ need to run the Minor up to Leamington again to get the leaky oil-breather changed. It’s at this point that I could do with access to a garage.

And in the final piece of news; I’ve re-sealed the shower, again. What I pulled out was, to put not too finer point on it, manky. I cleaned within an inch of it’s life, and sealed it with fresh silicone sealant.Â What happens now is up to the gods. And now?Â Now it’s time for me to go dunk myself in a bath – ‘cos I’m giving the sealant lots of time to dry out.

5/11/2008
Theory and Practice

About 6 or 7 weeks ago I sold the Viva; it had become somewhat of a millstone, sucking money in and making me miserable. It also had sprayed me with hot coolant, and looked likely to fail it’s next MOT without fairly substantial works to at least one sill, if not both.

On the plus side, the Minor looked to be nearly ready and so it made sense to sell a car with an MOT, rather than sell it without. It’s now about 7 weeks on, and the minor hopefully should be ready this weekend. We’re apparently waiting on the engine, which itself is waiting on the crankshaft, which needs to be reground. I’m praying that it’s done and back and being assembled as we speak. I promised the Minor to my mum for her wedding, plans involving white ribbon and all that. I know she’s hardly the world’s shiniest minor, but she’s part of the family.

Part of the reason for selling the Viva was, I’ll grant, that I thought I’d have the DAF up and running too. This was, of course, dependent on the original owner coming up with the V5. Which she hasn’t done. Which means that the DAF – while roadworthy (although needing brakes adjusting) is stuck on the drive – the ridiculousness of the DVLA’s policy (that an MOTd and insured car needs a V5 to get a tax disk) does frustrate me. If I’d stolen the car, d’y’think I’d *really* turn up at a DVLA office asking to *buy* a tax disk? Really?

I can’t actually think of a criminal process which would involve buying a tax disk for an illegally obtained car, and therefore find the idea that I can’t have one dumb.

At any rate, we’ve now been without a car of any road-legal sort for 7 weeks, and I’m beginning to tire of it. This wasn’t meant to be a long old whine, but frankly, it cost me 65 quid to make the journey to *agency nurse shift* and it should’ve cost me around 35 quid. To be fair I could’ve ridden the bike, but also to be fair, the bike’s top speed can drop as low as 45 on a really bad day, and 2-3 hours of riding at that speed would make me want to weep.

Anyway, so, skipping the whining, we had a productive week- in so far as I made lots of moneyÂ (more than I make in a week at work) doing 2 agency shifts (does anyone see how ridiculous that is?) and we replaced the old metal shed with a new (attrociously poor quality, but looks the part) wooden shed. We spent almost 12 hours solidly working on the shed (apart from a very quick break for lunch), the old one being surprisingly hard to take down. Rotten though it was there was a lot of rusty old steel holding it together. The block-work back wall was as bad as I feared though and I just pushed it over. Kathryn and I broke it up a bit once it’d been pushed over – so as to clear it away somewhat more easily. Unfortunately, the guy who said he’d come take away the steel hasn’t turned up; and our back yard looks like a scrap yard. We need to get a skip in, and my plan to put the car on the neighbour’s drive (the one of the abandoned house) has been foiled by him turning up and putting his car there. The swine.

I don’t see any action on the house though, so I guess he’s just dumped his car there and gone off on holiday (it’s a handy spot to park if you’re flying, I guess).

Anyway, so I’m back at my usual work after a week of nights, and the week ‘off’ with the 2 agency shifts – and I’ve screwed my body up by doing one night in that bunch. I’m tired and grumpy feeling – and I meant to ring the doctor this morning to sort out an appointment (I’m due my regular blood test to see if my liver’s got worse, I need my allergy meds and I want a referral to Guy’s allergy clinic). Unfortunately, I sat being apathetic until I finally rang and they’d no appointments left. Some days I really suck :-/

I’ll have to do it one day next week now, which is a shame because Kathryn might be at home and I’d much rather have spent time with Kathryn. The problem is, I’m achy and tired, and the sofa is terribly comfy.

Other tasks which were up for this morning included wandering to B&Q and seeing if they still do the dire, cheap, wobbly metal shelving which I could screw to the back wall of the thin-staple and nail shed so as we could actually have our kitchen back. I reckon that with a couple of sets of shelves there’d actually be enough space in there to put *all* the decorating and DIY stuff. Possibly even the relevant bits of the Charlie when I bring her back from my mum’s.

I’m, it must be said, getting desperate for a bike which does more than 50 mph. It’s mind blowingly tedious, the motorway at 50mph. And it’s not even like I’m getting awesome fuel efficiency from Cherry at this cruising speed, some of the petrol’s going into the gearbox, and lord knows where the rest of the 60mpg is going (it’s still running around 45mpg).

I *am* in a whiny mood.

I think I’ll go shower, and then put some more filler on Jejy, and watch We love XKCD a few more times. As a side point, one thing which I have noted for it’s awesomeness, apart from my luck at meeting Kathryn who is awesome beyond words, is that cooking one’s food from scratch does result in meals that are delicious. For years I’ve espoused this theory, and being one who can knock up a reasonable tomato sauce in the same time it takes to warm a pre-bought one (mine’s better :-P) had lived on basically: wraps, pasta, curry and pizza – those being the recipes I had in my head – for years. But being with Kathryn, and being bored of those minimal choices, we’ve started cooking our way through a couple of cook books – including the world’s most gorgeous chicken pie (coming again this weekend, because while it’s phenominally unhealthy (pot of cream, block of butter) it’s just so damn good that occasionally we have to eat it), calzone (we overcooked it slightly and it was still bloody delicious), curried parsnip soup (my dad’d be proud, bit too lemony but also great), and a miriad of other great dishes – and y’know what, my diet is much better and (apart from being knackered) I feel healthier. And it’s just damn spiffy.

Yes, we loose an hour every night to cooking, but quite frankly it’s worth it. Unfortunately, however creatively I did the sums I couldn’t make buying cereal more expensive that making our own granola. Our own granola was excellent. Truly, we had hit on the celestial being’s own recipe for granola. But now we’re back to Tesco Crunchy and Kathryn (not being a huge fan of it) is back on Fruit and Fibre. It’s somewhat of a comedown.
The other disappointing thing is not having time or space to invite others to come share with us. I miss having people come around to stay, and come for dinner. Hopefully, once I’ve got my debts a little more under control, and perhaps got money back from Charlie for the bodged restoration of Rebecca, and the house is more finished we can get back to a more luxurious lifestyle. Anyhow, I should move off this sofa, because I’ve been sat here all morning.

…oh, I’m still tickled that we don’t look over 18 :)

23/7/2008
Huge house / holiday / car update

Oh lord alive, I’ve not updated for a while, and there is much to say… There follows:

So, let’s start at the beginning (since that’s generally a good place to start). At the beginning of the week (the one before the one before this one), as we commenced our ‘week of tormenting the house’ we discovered the availability of one, free, DAF44. Now, to those who are unfamiliar with the DAF, it’s a car with a constantly variable transmission driven by big belts. It’s really awfully clever, and now, apparently, Mercedes do something similar.

At any rate, I’d fancied one for a while and it seemed like the perfect (simple) vehicle to get Kathryn so as she had an automatic to drive to work. It does, however, need some floor.

It’s also not a runner. Ignoring this, at the beginning of the week we headed down to see it, and decided that for the cost of transporting it, it was worth it. So, at the end of the week Joggernaught (not Juggernaught) arrived outside our house, somewhat reluctantly, and covered in a 3 year accumulation of tree-gunk. Some scrubbing by Kathryn (and a little light helpfulness from me) and she was kind of off white. Not exactly going to win Concourse, but presentable. Which probably relieved the neighbours. J-g needs a service, some fresh petrol, and I spent a lot of time persuading the passenger side door to shut. It’s in need of a little adjustment still, but it does shut, which is altogether goodness.

Annoyingly, the idea was to get the car and decide later if it was salvagable, but it’s kinda cute and it’s burrowed into mine (and I think Kathryn’s) heart somewhat. But there’s a financial limit on what we can do, so we’ll have to see what we can sort. Kathryn’s devoid of driver’s licence at the moment anyhow, and we’ve not even got the Autodata manual to get it serviced, so it’s just sitting for the time being. Shots of the DAF are here…

The week, however, was mostly spent gutting and redecorating the office and the bedroom. This did not entirely go to plan. Essentially, the idea was that we’d empty the bedroom and the office, sand and paint the office walls (which were already stripped), strip, fill, sand, paint the bedroom walls, paint both floors, varnish ’em and move back in. Oh, and construct a desk and a wardrobe at the same time.

Unfortunately,Â although it mostly went pretty well, we had two disasterous walls in the bedroom (which now await my attention to replaster), andÂ some lazy sod had applied wallpaper over old wallpaper. This doesn’t comeÂ off unless you attempt to apply filler over it, at which point it leaps from the wall withÂ reckless abandon.Â And the wall that used to have a fireplace in is also a complete state – one which requiresÂ us to attack it either with cloth or wallpaper, as it’s also a strip-and-replaster job otherwise.

But we achieved an astonishing amount (with some assistance from my Mum and Parmito, who popped down for the day and opted to spend the day sugar-soaping the walls in the office); the bedroom is so-much-nicer…

Before:

After:

A bit of a change, I hope you’ll agree.

To be fair,Â we’ve not spent the lastÂ year sleeping on the camp bed, but it does let you see how hideous the carpet was.

So yes, theÂ office now looks like an office, too. This is awesome…[House reno photo sets]

Anyhow, because of the disasters we were a day late heading from there to Brizzy to see Nikki and Kate. But we piled in the car and headed down to see them having spent some time making the house liveable. Having gotÂ down thereÂ we headed down to WestonÂ givingÂ Pepper and Eddie a chance toÂ run around like maniacs, and Kathryn, Nikki and I a chance to take photos of them running around like maniacs (and a few of each other). Despite the sun-shine the wind was cold, April this year feeling a lot like, say, November.

Anyhow, ‘cos I’m lazy, the photoset from Weston is here.

We then spent a few hours the next day (monday) mooching around Bristol. I love Bristol, it’s a great city, and were I staying in the UK it’s one of the places I’dÂ be happy to live (and could actually afford to live). Oxford is beautiful, but way too expensive to stay; Brighton (the last place we visited) is another I’d happily live in… Anyhow, I wanted to show Kathryn what I mostly feel is ‘my city’,Â so we took a bit of a wander. Mostly around the St. Nicholas market area; we were going to head up into Clifton but unfortunately, no one warned us that Fopp has reopened. Sucked in as we were by the sound of cheap music and cheap books calling us, we ended up spending far too much time and money in there… and thus Clifton and the Camera Obscura and such shall have to wait for another day.

So the photoset from Bristol is here… (see, really blindingly lazy, but you’re getting an update, what moreÂ do you want?!).

Anyhow,Â we then headed up to the Lakes, this was for somewhat of a working holiday in thatÂ we hadÂ 7 hotels to visit to check out as wedding venues. In the end, what we thought might be a hard decision turned out to be astonishingly easy; in that one hotel really stood out as beingÂ justÂ the most gorgeousÂ views, theÂ nicest staff, and just really the hands-down winner.Â After some trecking we did come up with a second, but it’s not really in the area of the lakes I love. It’s a beautifulÂ place, and quite definately aÂ fantastic venue. Had we not have seen the one we’ve fallen for thenÂ it’d’ve been first. ButÂ yes. So I rang the Registrar today; there’s not many times available, soÂ when I get home from work today we’ll have to sort it, hopefully.

Because my birthday fell while we were in the Lakes, we did take a day off fromÂ venue hunting, and wandered up toÂ Easedale tarn. Kathryn got me a shiny shiny book (and it turns out a Suzanne VegaÂ single, and something that’s not arrived yet…). It wasÂ wonderful to be up in the fresh air, on a mountain, in the quiet again. Just looking out over the vista was beautiful. Being as we’d notÂ done lots of walking to build up to it, we just went up to the Tarn and back down – but that alone was a fair walk – and the weather though cold was clear and sunny most of the day. It rainedÂ for literallyÂ a couple of minutesÂ (really lightly) just after we got back, and while we were preparing to head out for Dinner. Kathryn also took me to dinner at an italian restaurant inÂ Grassmere which was just lovely. The food wasn’t anything to write home about (it was fine, not unpleasant or anything, but definately itallian as cooked by the english), but the company was excellent :)

The next day was back on the road, touring more venues. PoorÂ old Brick’s exhaust’s temporary repair started to give up; I suspect the road up to the hostel was toÂ blame, but he soldiered on; slightly more throaty and distinctlyÂ more rattly than is ideal… and we headed, after touring venues, down toÂ Manchester.

The lakes photos are here.

Kathryn’s friend Helen lives in Manchester, and she showed us the city a little (We toured Ontario basin in Salford before heading in to the city); we spent lots of time chatting to her and her housemates, and had a very good chinese takeaway.Â I had a thoroughlyÂ nice time – and it was really really nice to sleep in a proper bed. It was also fantastic to meet one of Kathryn’s friends. I’m not very good at being not-shy, but I tried… No photos from Manchester because, well, most of the things I wanted to photograph were inconveinently located in the kinds of areas where taking a camera out is an invitation for someone to take the camera…

So, huge thanks to Helen for showing us some of Manchester and putting us up for the night :)

Then onward again, this time to Brighton.Â

Brighton is one of my otherÂ favouriteÂ cities; although I’ve not spent much time there, that which I have has beenÂ good, and it has a thriving music and culture scene. Unfortunately, it’s also home to West Pier, something which I have watched disintegrate since my youth. I loveÂ West Pier, I think it’s the mostÂ damning inditement of our ListingÂ laws that there is a Grade I listedÂ building lying in the sea. One which could, and rightly should, have been saved.

Anyway, ignoring the ranting, the plan was to chill out in the afternoon, get some food, head to the hostel to book in and go clubbing. All of which we did. We headed to the museum too, and encountered work of a very cool musician called Al Start; we also risked life andÂ limb entering a varietyÂ of bookshops and other-small-thing shops,Â but theÂ clubbing bit? Friday night at the Candy Bar was quite empty. Even come 11pm there was not much life there. We did have a game of pool, which was excellent, and then headedÂ back to our Hostel. Finally we spentÂ Saturday Morning touring the shops and goingÂ down to see Brighton and West Pier. We’ve already had the rant, so you could just have the photos…

So, finally we get to the Car. Poor old Brick has racked up 1000 miles this week; he’s burntÂ virtually no oil, but he’s dumpedÂ around 3 – 5 litres of coolant.Â Flushing the radiator was inadequate, it seems. And while short journeys are conducted fairly reasonably, long onesÂ are only okay as long as you are very, very gentle with the throttle. And no suddenly stopping for fuel or you’ll get that coolant explosion.

However, we seemed to get away with just topping up the coolant regularly; but what we didn’t get away with was 1000 miles on top of the 12 or so thousand miles on the temporary exhaust repair. It snapped sometime up in the lakes, and unforunately the hostel near Brighton was actually up an unmade track, and that spelt the end of the front section which, it seems, also had a temporary repair at some point.

Unfortunately, about 40 miles from home the exhaust gave up completely, shearing into 3 separate pieces; and the RAC bloke couldn’t bodge them back together. Thankfully, the very nice RAC bloke towed Brick home (despite me only having roadside assistance) – his argument being that it was freezing cold, and it’d take him as long as it would to wait with us. He was an absolute star, and will mean that the RAC get my recommendation and continued custom. They rock.

Unfortunately+, I can’t seem to get hold of a new exhaust for Brick. Well, I can get a stainless steel one, but I deem that somewhat excessive. Especially when Rebecca’s looking at being finished fairly soon…Â I’ve got to head to work now, so we’ll save the rant about cars and money for later, shall we?

21/4/2008
So not quite as posty as I thought then

I’m surprised by myÂ restraint, although until yesterday I’d not fixedÂ either of the laptops and the dead G5 continued to vex me, so posting would have had to be doneÂ via Kathryn’s laptop or byÂ theÂ TV-Hackintosh. Yesterday I finally got aroundÂ to stripping down the Dell laptop, it was broken in rather a lot of places; the screen’s casing’s disintegrating, theÂ connectors seem to be working loose; but thankfully the power-supply connector hadn’t broken. Despite feeling crunchy and loose, it’s actually the cable that hadÂ died and pulling one of the spareÂ powerbricks with a new cable from the attic had it working again. Still no battery though.

And the screen, while clear and sharp still, has a serious flicker issue which isn’t related to the connector on the board. So rather than being back with a laptop that I can close and open at will, I’m still with one that has to stay inÂ a fairly fixed position. And the screen casing’s cracked around all the screws that hold it together; so moving the screen without proper care is prone to making the screen casing come apart. Still, it’s all araldite-and-wire’d back into some sembalance of a structure. It’s nice to be able to pick it up without the whole thing flexing disconcertingly.

I’ve stripped the hard-drives out of theÂ G5 and will give the company who repaired it a ringÂ as soon as they’re open; see if I can’t get that backÂ up there to be looked at again. I am concerned though as to why the supplies packed up again. I’m switching things around though, it’sÂ no longer going to be the video server; which will, frustratingly, make the machine in the lounge somewhat noiser, but should mean no more network streaming issues.

As for the house (renovation photo set number 19), well, I spent thursday generating as much dust as it’s humanly possible to create, but this time I sealed theÂ kitchen off from the rest of the house and channelled away with myÂ wall chaser. While it is an ace tool, it’s also the most manky job in all of christendom. On the plus side I’ve got two electrical boxes to sink and then we can put the wiring where it should be. I removed all the wiring from the immersion heater – all the way back to the fuse box, in the end. The distressing thing is this house’s wiring is a mess, there’s no proper ring main to speak of, there’s just little pseudo-rings scattered around and linked by a big junction box (hidden) and spurs running here, there and everywhere. I could, were it not for the Part P regulations tidy it all up. Chopping some chunks out, drilling some new holes, etc, and I’d have a downstairs ring and an upstairs ring. But because I’d then have to call in an electrician to check over all the work I’d done; and to re-do wiring in the kitchen requires (‘cos of Part P) even more in the way of work that’s nice-but-not-required (as far as I’m concerned, and the electrician I spoke to agrees :) ) that I’m better off leaving it all alone and just putting new sockets on the front so it all *looks* nice.

Incidentally, while pulling down the wall, I came across a Daily Mirror from 1963. Sadly it’d suffered from being right near the filler pipe from the cistern and was disintegrating pretty badly. Also, whoever put it in there then decided to use cement, not plaster, which probably didn’t help it any and made it somewhat hard to separate from the wall and from the huge clump of concrete. There’re some shots of it in my newly created ‘Renovation Finds’ photo set.

Never mind.

In other news (at least not house related news), I broke my Cafetier today. I’m quite distressed by this, being a coffee lover. I have a filter maker, but that makes a minimum of 2 cups, and I’ve got a little ‘filter in a cup’ which is just dandy, but I can’t just sit on the couch and have that. I have to make it then bring it in. So a new cafetier will have to be sought.

I rather liked the one I had :-/

And in other, other news. I went up to JLH on Saturday to see, well, what remains of Rebecca. It’s pretty distressing still, the car’s visibly got lots of work to go – and seeing what Charles Ware had done; panels (structural ones) that are meant to meet other panels and fall about an inch short? The boot floor (the *new* boot floor) was rusted through because they’d not protected it with paint… It’s another 2grand just to put right the mess they’ve made on that side.

So, anyway. i’ve got an interview with the unnamed nursing agency in 2 weeks, so I need to dig out all the relevant paperwork for that today too. In addition to working aÂ long day and a late. And hopefully heading towards reducing that debt again :-)

And one thing I’ve not discussed is the Wedding; which I really should, but which warrants a whole post by itself (without my finger hurting each time I press a key (walls, slipping claw hammersÂ and fingers don’t mix, incidentally). But, if any of you out there know a good seamstress… I’m going to talk to a colleage at work, but more options is always better than less if you ask me. We were thinking about doing a sort of gift-wedding; because we *have* everything (well, everything we *need*). Traditionally, marriage was move-in-together-start-a-new-home; but for us, we’ve got a home, we’ve got a complete dinner service, we’ve got tables, chairs, toasters, ovens, bed-linen, furniture, glasses, a fridge, a washing machine, a blender… We considered the possibilityÂ that instead people could gift us bits of the wedding (or something towards them), but we came to the conclusion (having discussed it with people) that this was more odd than normal, possibly even ‘too odd’. So instead we’re pulling in friends who can do things (or who know people who can do things) to keep costs to something we might be able to afford this lifetime.

So; on that note, if you know anyone who’s a seamstress, that’d be handy, and if you’d like to do something for the wedding, shout – or we won’t know :)

3/3/2008
it’s an ambulance!

So, today I decided to scare the pants off myself; or more accurately, agreed cheerfully to scare the pants off myself. My beloved asked me a while ago if I’d mind giving a little talk at the school at which she teaches; and possibly due to a bout of clinical insanity*, I agreed and thought about what I was going to say, and do. We got some information from the 2 classes teacher’s (argh, I can’t work out where that apostrophe should live), and today I headed down there in my best (quite literally my best) ironed uniform (believe me, the words Ironing and Kate rarely go together); along with a selection of bits of stuff for plastering and slinging.

Having got there, I met up with Kathryn and proceeded to mentally pace around the staff room. I did a pretty good job of actually sitting still and looking like a startled rabbit tho’. When my time came, I was ready….well, ish. And out from it’s usual hiding place came the confident, competent, together and talk-giving persona. Apparently I pitched it about right, I certainly enjoyed it in a flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-terrified-kind of way. And most importantly the kids seemed to enjoy it.

Some of them asked really good questions; some of them were incredibly good on what bones were what; and poor old Gromit (who came with me to be my plastered assistant) got totally plastered having alledgedly broken both arms (uh, legs?). And just as I was leaving a slightly smaller? child proclaimed that I’m an ambulance… Perhaps I should lose some weight ;)

The journey home was a little long however…

Parcelfarce failed to leave the new modem with anyone when they couldn’t deliver it yesterday; and so I rang them up (knowing I’d be out today) and said ‘can I collect it from your hideously inconveniently located and difficult to get to depot in the land of london?’ to which I was informed that this was indeed possible, and yes I could go get it. After about an hour of hideous london pre-rush-hour traffic, we finally reached the depot where I was informed that they’d sent it out on a lorry to try and deliver it again today.

I must admit I was unimpressed. I’ve never had a good experience with Parcelforce. Or at least, the bad ones are so common that they outnumber the good by a substantial margin. Having arranged a ‘it will be at your postoffice tomorrow’ arrangement, we headed out again. Pausing only to buy a burger king meal (yes, yes, I know. But it was there, and I was there, and it smelt so good). When we finally made it home it turned out that this time he’d decided to leave it with a neighbour. The new modem-router-of-justice was here.

Only… it didn’t have any firmware in it. All credit to Be though; they offered to send a new one and, indeed, working together we got the one they’d sent to accept the firmware from the supplied disk (it took a few goes), and suddenly we have internet. I can’t say ‘screamingly fast broadband of joy’, but we have about a 3.5Meg connection, which is a huge step up from the home hub’s pathetic 1.5 Meg. Apparently the little magic box will also do VOIP, but I’ll leave that for tomorrow.

Technology was on my side though; this I know, because the BT HomeHub Phone (the one that crashes on speaker phone and which can’t detect that there’s new firmware to update to, model 1010, I think); well, contrary to expectations it registered with the Tevion base on our new phones first time… and so there’s the faintest hope that things might be good in the land of Teknowlegie.

On the superplus side, Kathryn’s other-half-of-her-present-which-is-unrelated-to-the-first-half is winging it’s way here. Lauren and Chrissy’s present is here…. most of the others are ordered… so, in general, Ra.

Less Ra, however, is Rebecca. Jonathon from JLH sent me the first photos of Rebeccas rust monster. He rung me to chat about what we’re going to do…and, well, she’s… not quite as well as I’d thought.

The driver’s side’s not quite so bad, but basically Charles Ware’s Morris Minor Centre left me with a car that was ‘structurally sound’; uh, yeah, except that the chassis/floorpan isn’t actually attached to the body at the back at all. I had my friends travelling in that car. If we’d’ve been shunted at any speed there would have been *nothing* left of that back passenger area. Nothing at all. *sighs*

Annyhow, we’ll see what happens. Apart from me working scary numbers of extra shifts to pay for it all. On the plus side I’ve read Geek Mafia: Mile Zero and I’m a good way through Blacklist. Reviews may follow if I’m feeling wordy.

* Actually I agreed because I love her, and because I need to scare the pants off myself once in a while to remind myself that I’m alive.

5/12/2007
le sigh

So, yesterday was a good day (apart from the transient death of a laptop. It seems the power connector’s gone now (in addition to the cable and the case, the screen’s occasionally flickering too. I think it might be time to take it apart); tiring but everything went remarkably well. Despite the 6 miles travelled in the last year, Rebecca aquitted herself beautifully; carrying me the 120 miles (with the brief stop at my mum’s to collect new wings) without any untoward experiences (apart from a petrol leak, which I was faintly aware of, but only actually checked up on once I’d got up there).

It was a gorgeous day, and oddly, for someone who’s lived in the UK all their lives, the sunny-but-cold air reminded me very strongly of Canada. I guess, doing Rebecca is largely a step towards Canadification, and having thought about it getting Canada out of my head was hard. Poor old Rebecca though, her engine sounded so sick by the time we got there – running essentially on 3 cylinders except at higher revs…

Anyhow, Jonathon of JLH is very friendly – and we chatted for a while and looked around at the Zetec engine’d minors, and the minors undergoing major structural rehabilitation, and chatted of rebuilds topping Â£50,000… And I looked at my poor tired Rebecca, her subsistence motoring existence having taken it’s toll; rusty wings, rusty doors, knackered engine and such, she won’t be getting one tenth of that; but she her reliability is something which has left me with no small measure of respect for the engineering behind her.

Anyhow, at the end of the day we headed to Leamington Spa; unfortunately getting stuck behind a learner driver – my train ticket was for 1800, and as he suggested 2 sets of (red) traffic lights from the station, I sprinted from the car and made it to the station at 1803, fortunately, my train was delayed and came in at 1806, just as I scrabbled up the stairs to the platform. I probably had about a minute to spare – and y’know what, I felt sick as a dog as I sat on that train. I sat there reading Scott Pilgrim (vol 1, I needed to start again at the beginning); and drifted off to Canada in my head again.

I was back, sitting on the GO heading back to Mississauga, new copies of Scott Pilgrim in hand, from a day in Toronto. As the train pulled into Oxford (where I changed) I was thoroughly in that headspace. Finally got back to home just after 8, stopping at the Kebab van for dinner…

Today, theoretically hasn’t gone badly. I’ve paid the council tax bill (after some argument with the home hub and the hub phone). Internet Exploiter didn’t want to start today, and Firefox is still doing it’s “i think I’ll stop and rest for a bit” at random moments. The laptop is however working after some wiggling of cables and connectors, so I guess reparing that is something I can look forward to. I may well switch it for a standard power connector, since then I can ditch my mini-adaptor. I just really don’t want *more* jobs to do. The fan heater in the lounge also needs stripping down and repairing, and this time I’m peeved with I&A car services.

They’re great, in-so-far as being a garage I actually trust. But they’re slow. Or at least, when I booked my car in before they had it for several days and didn’t do anything, none of the service was done. This time, they collected the car (although it was no longer booked in), have had it for 3 days, and now want it for another 3. 6 days is a hell of a long time to have a car.

Colour me unimpressed.

Come the spring it’ll be back to car servicing I fear. It’s cheaper and it’s quicker. I’m down a car for a few hours, rather than days. Le *sigh*.

I guess I should get on with the house, but I’m just somehow feeling really fed up. Poot.

30/11/2007
Sheer unadulterated lazyness

Okay, so shoot me. I’m taking my morning more or less, no actually I’m taking a chunk of my morning off. I may go and prod at the paint in the bathroom, I may not, I may turn on the water to the cistern, I may not. We shall see.

I actually got up hugely early, but the thing is – the thing is I’ve got to drive to my mum’s to collect the wings for my mog, and the drive to the midlands to drop off Rebecca before waiting until 1800 for my train back. I’m hoping to have a big wait between heading up there and the train on the way back, but I can’t promise that’ll be the case. I was hoping she’d run better once she’d got some fresh petrol in her, but actually despite starting and running, she’s still rough as sin.

So, anyhow, I’ve spent my morning doing stuff all. I’ve downloaded some nipod management tools, I’ve downloaded something which claims it can remove all my dupilicate mp3 files (ha, I’ve tried this before… but hey, it’s worth a shot). I’m still converting several gigs of Kathryn’s AAC (into mp3) files for placement on the nipod, although the application I’ve got in my sweaty little paws says it can do that on the fly while copying and integrating sorta with iTunes. Which is cool beans.

‘ve spent some time trying to find a prezzie for one of my friends; frustratingly I dreamt the perfect present for this friend last night; sadly however it doesn’t *actually* exist. I had my doubts, and searching the net has confirmed them, distressingly.

But you have to look, don’t you?

Yesterday I stripped an awful lot of paint from the radiator. It’s about 2/3rds done. I’m thinking I might mark out the channels to cut in the kitchen and then tomorrow I could do that, to give me a break from paint stripping. Ha, we could knock up a faux kitchen in a day, don’t’cha think? Maybe? Heh. Anyhow, I should go shower, really.

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29/11/2007
She Rocks!

So, for once I’m not talking about my girlfriend; although she does also verily rock.

Today’s been a bit of a struggle; having seen my mum yesterday we got to bed not late, but later than normal (we went to see a bollywood film in Sloughs amazing deserted cinema, more on that later), I got up this morning and had – how shall we put this – well, let’s say I felt a bit unwell. Several visits to the bathroom later and I was feeling better, but less than perfect. My stomach still isn’t sure about the whole food concept and I keep running alternately hot and cold, but hey. Being ill never stopped me before. So I ordered the new ADSL, I spent some time freaking about trying to work out costs from electricity suppliers (Argh!), and I rang up about getting my beloved mog up to the restoration place.

JLH Minors are well known in Moggie circles, and after a friendly chat with John a day was agreed. Then I explained that Rebecca’s not been started for a year. He wished me luck and said he’d see me on the day – and if I could ring before I head up that’d be great. So, plan is book tickets for my return journey and then start making my way up early in the AM.

However, I knew Rebecca needed a new battery, I’ve borrowed hers a few times to start brick, and it won’t really hold a good charge. It’ll do enough for a few goes (about 3, shortish attempts) before the starting attempts start to sound tired. With that in mind I checked the spec of the old battery, decided what bits I needed for the globe taps (I hope) and tromped over to B&Q, and then wandered over there. I can’t say as I feel great, but having got there I sorted out the bits I needed, spent some time evaluating shed-locking-options and then headed down to Halfords.

At halfords I made a sound somewhat like a suckling pig. My last battery was about 30 quid… they’re now, well, start at just shy of 60 quid. Having stared at them a bit, I made my way somewhat further to Jagdev. I can’t say as Jagdev autos brings a smile to my face, nor is their customer service anything to rival millards (nor do they have the fun 1960’s asthetic of millards), but all the same they are cheaper. And 50 quid (for what I think’d’ve cost me nearly 70 at Halfords) later I wandered (slowly, car batteries are not light) back to the house.

Now, you have to respect this: I turned over Rebecca by hand a few times, just to make sure nothing had siezed and to try and slide some oil over all the surfaces; and then with some trepidation stuck the battery in. I can’t say that after her year off she started first time (and to be fair she’s got a mechanical, not an electric fuel pump, so had to pump fuel though the lines to fill the carb while turning over); I can say however that she gave it a go and coughed a few times sufficiently to disengage the starter. I can however say that second try, after a year of sitting, she fired up and ran. Not particularly well; but the engine *is* due to go for a rebuild. The idle was somewhat uneven, one of the cylinders was clearly somewhat less enthusiastic than the others. But she kept running, and I am more than impressed; I am stunned. I was expecting to be getting new plugs, cleaning distributor caps and rotor arms, and getting the easy start out. But no need, for Rebecca is a car of many virtues.

So, wish her luck next week, for it is a long journey.

23/11/2007
Progress (at least in some areas)

So, I’ve had a to-do list on the computer for a while; I’d like to imagine that I was getting through it at great speed, but I’m not. Indeed it’s been the same list for most of the week. Or at least modifed versions. See, sadly as I’ve crossed off items from the to-do list I’ve found new things to put on it; at least, until today, when I found out just how dead the laptop battery really is. I accidentally unplugged my laptop and about 15 minutes later it was dead. Dead as in died without even flashing up the low battery warning. Feh.

Anyhow, I’ve been plodding through it. Not with a great deal of success, to be brutally honest. But there we go.

I had stuff to write about when I started writing this yesterday; but I’ve largely forgotten it. Since Kathryn asked about the ‘Things I want page‘ so I’ve updated that. I’m sure I had more of a reason for posting. The past week’s been really quite crappy; I mean, I’ve enjoyed it in some senses of the word but it has been incredibly hard work – and to be honest a lot of patients haven’t got the care that they deserved. Some have got rather more than they deserved too; to be honest. I think my judgement’s been off as I’ve been tired.

For some reason our poor little department has been flooded with patients, and pretty much every day has been full and really, really hard work. I have a faint feeling there was one nice shift. But I can’t really recall it. This isn’t to say I don’t enjoy my job, I just sometimes feel that it’s a bit like bailing out a rowboat using a sieve.

Anyhow, so this week has been a bit frustrating. Brick’s starting problems have returned. I’m going to have a clean of the relevant connector and maybe try measuring the voltage while waving the cable around and see if it suddenly drops to 0 or somesuch. But even applying the jumpleads doesn’t always seem to make it work, which was my trick last time around.

I finally rang Virgin to find out about the phone, and it’s a no. The street is cabled, just not as far as our house; I did actually put ourselves on the ‘come look and call me if you’ll cable it’, but I doubt it’s worth the hastle for them. There’s only 6 or so houses (possibly as many as 10) that are on the street that aren’t cabled, and most of ’em have Sky. So it looks like I’ll have to trawl through the broadband suppliers and find a ‘good’ one. BT seem to have given up offering me things to try and convince me to stay with their crappitude.

I’ve done more tiling; Kathryn did some grouting too, so there’s a section that’s more or less finished. But there’s still a lot of tiling to do. But one wall is done bar the wood at the bottom; which needs different adhesive. And the wall the toilet’s on is similarly done. The one with the radiator on is done bar 6 tiles. When I’ve put those last 6 on I’ll start cleaning up the radiator; because once the radiator’s on then we’re very close to calling in the gas engineer. It’s getting fracking cold here now, cold enough that the fire’s starting to be slow to warm the lounge and that it’s cool in the bedroom. So I guess the fact that we’re now not going to Italy is actually quite handy because a solid week of work should see the bathroom finished; and then the happy chappy who is my gas engineer can come and hopefully stop us freezing to death. I’m actually tempted, if I can, to connect up the lounge radiator too. That would be positively spiffy, but we’ll just have to see how we go.

I’ve also finally got around to filling in the NHSP forms, so I now need a signature from my manager and some lovely photos of me, oh and some photocopies of my passport and stuff. Then I’ll be able to earn the extra cashes required for…

…the Minor. I’ve also finally got around to ringing JLH – and Rebecca will be heading up there towards the end of November, beginning of December. She’ll be fitting in around other work; and it’s quite terrifying how much she’s going to cost. It’s a big chunk of the original restoration costs. I’ll also be adding recovery to my breakdown cover before we try running up there because she’ll now have not been run for just shy of a year, and is *not * a well bunny. If we decide we’ve had enough on the way up there, then we can stop and call breakdown then.

Poor old Cherry Red’s been doing the run to and from work; she’s still just as sick as she has been for a long time, with a top speed of about 80km/h to maybe 100 km/h. She’s next on the list, and will have to get taken down to London at some point. I keep thinking about what could be causing it but I suspect without stripping it down I’m not going to find out. She still leaks two-stroke (which I need to get some more of from somewhere – and not the local bike shop who I was very unimpressed with). It’s getting bloody cold though, riding the bike. And my bike gear’s beginning to show it’s age (even more!) – the zipper’s starting to come apart on the jacket. I may have to make a run down to Bristol (since I want to head down and see friends anyhow) to my favourite bike shop and see what they’ve got on offer :)

Yes, so.

(And now, thanks to e-bay, I have oil. Ra).

So, last night we went out to the A&E and Paramedics’ Halloween party (yes, as many people pointed out to us on the way there, Halloween is not for a while yet) – with Kathryn’s help I went as a Witch and she as my familiar :) Despite my shyness I did actually talk to a few people although I didn’t do a great deal of socialising. We also screwed up travelling there; I forgot how crap Firstbus are and we tried to get a bus to the station. Obviously at obscure times like Saturday night, at say 1900ish, you need busses no more frequently than hourly (oh, and let’s make the times the bus run completely unrelated to the online time table). In the end, despite my ridiculous heels we decided to walk there, which would’ve been fine, apart from the fact that my cheap-arse boots had a staple come through the sole while walking, and the balls of my feet feel like they’re working up to revealing some blisters of significant size. I had a good time though, and we headed home after midnight. I may share the picture of us; when I feel enthused enough to put it on the laptop :)

We had a very relaxed day today though; it’s really nice just to spend a day relaxing, I’ve not touched the house all day, I’ve not dealt with the E-mail to JLH, although I may ring this chap about the Enfield…. and JP about the Enfield also. And that, that is my update :)

20/10/2007