Mostly lemon based

Category: I’m a mechanic me…

  • I’d ask where my day went, but I know…

    For once I really did do stuff with the weekend.

    Yesterday I got to the stage where I’d finished to first-draft stage chapter 3 of the dissertation; which meant that today I could tackle a few other jobs, namely cleaning the bathroom (done), tidying the garage (sort of done), small jobs on Cherry (speedo drive, new chain casing, greasing and adjusting the chain, etc). I also did a run to the supermarket. It doesn’t sound like that much, but really, it was. I’ve freecycled a bunch more stuff. And now I’m really *really* tired.

    I have however remembered what it was like before I started my course, when I had a life. It was nice.

  • The Sunday Catch-up Post

    So, it’s very strange. If I’m here, no one updates at the weekend. I go away for a weekend and have seven pages of LJ to read through. 7. Pages. Seven. Gah!

    Anyway, on Friday I got home from a (shockingly useful and interesting, no really, Work Based Learning Day) during which I handed in my NP5 placement documents (I passed, thankfully; however now I’ve got 10 weeks of ‘work’ on a new ward, during which my only outcome is to not kill anybody) and struggled through shaving my legs well (as opposed to the ‘adequate’ I normally do when going swimming) and gathering together the stuffs for my trip to Rocky Horror. I even remembered to take the map, so as I could pop in at Ray’s and collect the Towbar. Of course, it being me I managed to get out the door a staggering hour later than intended (though to be fair I did spend rather longer than I’d intended at Uni / Hospital, what with popping by to greet the new ward. Of course, I neglected to ask them what time their shifts start).

    Having piled stuff in the car I headed up the motorway. And for the first time in my life I am thankful to a Bentley driver, because as I was heading up the motorway the engine’d got a bit louder. Not *lots* louder, but the level of louder I associate with the exhaust manifold managing to slacken off and thus, giving the effect of hole’d exhaust. But given the fact that the exhaust I’ve got doesn’t really fit the manifold very well (for reasons I don’t understand given that it is the right part) I’ve kind of got used to this occuring.

    But as I tore past the Bentley he dashed out behind me flashing his lights rather excessively; I pulled sideways, looked round as he came past and he mouthed ‘your exhausts come off’ at me. I thought ‘arse’ and made a dash for the hard shoulder. He was half right; it’d snapped. The high quality, long life, stainless steel exhaust’s snapped just in front of the rear silencer. The application of a substantial amount of force and the thing came off and was dumped, unceremoniously in the boot. I pondered for a second and decided I still had one silencer and that’s good enough for the original mog, hopped in and headed on up the motorway.

    And hit traffic. I’d planned to nip by Ray’s on Friday… but this was clearly a flawed plan; insofar as if I ‘nipped’ by Ray’s then I’d not get to Chrissy’s until after we were s’posed to leave. In fact, given the traffic I was encountering getting to Chrissy’s in time to leave would be hard anyway. Fortunately, I have a plan for moments like this… “Drive faster”.

    So, yes, ignoring the near annihilation by careless lorry drivers, the near-emergency-stop to avoid becoming one with the minor and a 7.5 tonne truck, and the insane number of people convinced that being overtaken by a Morris Minor means that they must instantly speed up, pass the mog and then slow down again; ignoring all of that, I got there at ten past 6. A mere 1.5 hours later than intended.

    I flumped into a chair and Chrissy offered me a tea. When she came back I queried when we had to leave. A quick check of the time table and the discovery was made that ‘in about 20 minutes’ was the optimum (*only*) time to leave if we were to make it to London in time. Thankfully I’m pretty quick at getting a basque on, although the stockings really didn’t want to play. The new suspenders were a bit tight on the stockings and it took a while, but at any rate, we made it; looking something like this:

    Lauren and Chrissy

    Kate on a Train

    So, err, yes. That’s me. On a train.

    The Rocky Horror Show absolutely, totally and utterly rocked. It was such a laugh, and made me wonder why I’d left it so long to go again. Apart, obviously, from the ever present monetary issues. And it really is quite fun being a shameless hussy now and then, wandering through the streets of london in my undies. Although by the end of the day, when we got home (at 1ish, I think?) my feet were saying something quite rude about the 3″ / 4″ heels. I’d measure them but all my rulers appear to have disappeared. Anyhoo. There’s more rather random picture spam here (although only one more underwear shot, and that’s blurry). It really is random by the way, what with covering my wander round Huntingdon this morning.

    So, yes, then yesterday I spent most of the day asleep; and then having woken up, wishing that I had much stronger painkillers. Eventually I downed my usual brufen / paracetamol combination, drinking lots having not helped, and started to feel remotely like some kind of human being – which meant that by the time Dr Who came on I felt human. Due to Chrissy’s NTL box having a fit of insanity we watched it in 4:3, which was very odd (no, seriously, really quite odd, it’s obviously a Widescreen program, on a widescreen telly, but the edges were being chopped off). Good episode, although very very much a second half to the first one. Probably want to watch it again with the first episode – so as to get the whole flow of it.

    Eurovision came on I could eat Curry and drink Cider. Which turned out to be an excellent plan. And watching Lordi win Eurovision has got to be the Best. Thing. Ever.

    They simply Rock, and I await the Arockalypse with baited breath. I also have the Lordi Album now…

    Um. So. Yes. I fear I have become sick, I have the lurgee waiting with baited breath to consume me.

    Anyway, so I wandered round Huntingdon this morning and took a few shots of an abandoned house. At least I think it’s abandoned. The bizzare thing is that the hedge is trimmed, but there’s no signs of use on any of the locks, and there’s lots of broken windows. So I suspect that the council may have nipped round with hedge trimmers.

    And then I spent a very chilled out morning back at Chrissy’s, before piling in the car and heading back (via Ray’s, this time).

    And then I got back and my PC wouldn’t boot. Yes. hal.dll was apparently missing, and there were a couple of corrupt files on the disk. Now I’ll just say this once, okay?

    WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH WINDOWS?!

    There.

    I shut it down, and it *dies*. Well, semi-dies. A reboot and a checkdisk and it thinks it’s okay. I await the collapse of the tower of cards with a real fear (since it’s my work machine). *sighs*.

    I am starting to wonder if it’s time to start from scratch. New *everything*, because I can’t help but wonder how it’s going so badly wrong. Anyway.

    Having got the machine to boot I read this. This is a very good post. You should all go and read it. Go. Now. I wish I had the skill to express thoughts this well, but she’s managed to put everything I can consider thinking about this and the related issues it conjurs up.

    But then I read this; which is Awesome (no, not like a hot dog).

    I think you’re sufficiently updated on my life now, so I’m going to eat food; and vegitate; because I feel rough as hell.

  • No, now I’m exhausted.

    I’ve reached a bad stage of exhaustion. I’ve reached the feeling pissy stage. I’m just having a quick drink (fruit tea, not several pints of wine, which is what I feel like having) and then I’m off to bed. I actually got comments at work about not being myself. Hopefully I’ll feel less like death tomorrow. But I am exhausted. Just exhausted.

    I was going to have a whinge, but I can’t really be arsed. Let’s just say:

    – Non recycleable packaging. Why?!
    – Excessive Packaging. Please stop, as an adult I’m able to discern when a packet consists of 90% empty space, I really don’t need that space around my food, please make your box smaller. All the big box does is unnecessarily waste material and the space in my bag.
    – Why did they stop using proper cats eyes and put stupid reflectors on the roads? Why? Cats eyes last (essentially) forever and are self cleaning and are incredibly reflective. Stupid plastic reflectors get covered in shite, don’t work nearly as well anyway and then flake off the road after a few months leaving no fracking reflective effect at all.

    So that saves me whinging about that later.

    In other news, the speedo on Cherry randomly stopped working on the way home tonight. It was working when I pulled out of the hospital, and then about 1/3rd of the way home, just stopped. I’ve had a quick check of the cable and it looks okay (when connected to the drive the speedo end wouldn’t turn; when not connected it would. Neither end could be withdrawn from the sheath). The speedo drive still seems to be turning with the wheel. So I’ll have to have a more thorough check err, tomrrow, I hope. I’ve also re-re-readjusted the stupid cheap mirrors (you have to undo a bolt to change the adjustment which makes it somewhat difficult to do while riding). Anyway, I need to fall into bed at this point. So that’s my plan. g’night.

  • I know, I shouldn’t have booked the MOT…

    …when the bike wouldn’t start.

    But honestly, I thought it was the battery. I left the battery on charge after it wouldn’t go this morning; booked the MOT, crossed my fingers and prayed. At 1500, a full hour before the MOT I wheeled Cherry out of the garage onto the paving, I strapped all the bits to the bike – my presumption being if the battery is iffy I don’t really want to try and start her and then stop her (him?). She wouldn’t go. There followed half an hour of fettling, of switching the exhaust to the nice in good condition one that I bought for Claire (I couldn’t find it earlier so I’d fitted the ratty battered old one from Claire) because I was working through things I’d changed and that was the most similar to the one I’d had before. Finally I dragged her down the road in a (vain) attempt to get a rolling start. She just wouldn’t run. I’d like to say that my memory of riding two strokes kicked in. I’d like to say that I knew what was wrong.

    But I didn’t. I just randomly cursed and decided to change the spark plug, the old one it turned out consisting of a good layer of oil and very little sparking capacity and thus with 30 minutes to the MOT she was running. I ran round throwing things into the garage dragged the rest of my gear on and sped off. Well, I say ‘sped’. Sped might be an overstatement.

    This is was for two reasons. The first is that my rebuilt brakes have not exactly ‘settled in’ and my first pull on them gave a retardation effect similar to that of loosely gripping the brake disk with some damp lettuice. A couple of squeezes and there was some braking effect, not a lot, but it was definately getting a bit better. The main reason for the slowness was that everyone in Bristol promtly decided that they needed to be somewhere else, anywhere else, at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon. The traffic was dire. I filtered, somewhat cautiously, I’ve not ridden for months, the sun beating down on me. Lord was it hot. Finally, the ring road cleared a bit… and the skies did the opposite. It started raining. Not terribly hard, but just enough to let me know the universe was laughing at me ;-)

    Of course, this was an optimum opportunity for me, out of practice as I was, to experience the wonder of Chin Hung tyres. I’m a stickler for good quality tyres, but not, apparently, so much of a stickler as to transfer them from my other ‘zed to this one. Actually, that’s mostly because I’ve not been so impressed with the Mag Mopus tyres on the 251. I think the bike’s too heavy for the tyres. Anyway. It rained. Not a lot, enough to make a mockery of my summered (de-wintered) bike gear and summer gloves. Damp, I continued on…

    I made it to Hanham at 1555, my MOT being at 1600. I pulled over and checked the map. I struggled through Hanham, it was solid with traffic. Thankfully the rain’d stopped so I could actually have my visor up, but it was so sunny now that I could feel myself melting in my black bike gear. Finally I pulled into the industrial estate, I hunted round and couldn’t see the garage anywhere. I hopped off again to check the address – and look at my watch. 1615. Shit. I might as well see where the bloody place is anyway. The brakes were still spongy as hell (imagine squeezing on a sponge with a frozen pea right in the middle, that’s what it was like) and I had no real belief that – especially with the new computerised system – they’d be able to do the test.

    Finally, after hunting round for about 5 minutes I realised they were on the other side, at the back, inside the large multi-unit workshop. I stopped, killed the engine, stripped off a bit (i.e. my helmet, I didn’t suddenly perform an impromptu striptease using the bike as a prop (or indeed some form of kinky accessory), and wheeled the bike in…

    …and the guy turned to me and said “MOT”?

    “Yep,” I said, “am I too late”?

    “Nope, you’re fine… D’you want a cup of tea?”

    I have never sucked down tea quite as greatfully as that cuppa. I had half a bottle of water too, I was so hot and tired. We chatted while he did the test. He suggested that I might want to get some red dye or somesuch to make the rear light more red (waves at Nikki (:-P)) but that it was okay this year at least. He prodded round the bike; I’ve not seen a bike test before and it’s oddly archaic.

    Eventually he came to the brake test. He rolled the bike onto the rollers and his wife operated the machine. From no-where the bike’s brakes worked. The front wheel locked and the bike rolled forward… off the rollers.

    The back brake though was shite on the way there. I’d tried to adjust it when I got there but the adjuster’s stuck. It’s still covered in quarry dust – and when that went on the roller, he had to press really hard…. to make it pass.

    We chatted awhile while he checked the headlamp alignment (something I’d not bothered with); he even got me to sit on the bike while he did it… Finally he declared that there was nothing really wrong, and that the bike had passed. Cherry. MOT’d. Running.

    As he did the paper(computer)work we chatted, and I joked about the tradition of it raining every time I got a bike on the road – and that it’d rained on me on the way there… as I entered my PIN in the machine there was a deep rumble and a flash of lighting. No, I’m not joking. There was a full on thunderstorm which broke out as I completed payment for my MOT. Piss = Taken.

    I headed out into the rain, the summer gear I had on now demonstraing it’s complete lack of waterprooficity, and rode through the appauling traffic. Now, I don’t know what you think, but as far as I’m concerned; rain should not hurt when it hits you. But it did. It felt like little spears attempting to dig into my skin. When I say, incidentally, rain, I don’t want you to think summer shower. This was torrential rain. This was an inch of standing water on the road. This was me fording streams.

    Finally, I got home. There was 2 inches of standing water on the gravel in the garden. There was a good 2 inches up against the wall of the house. Thunder / lightining. Incidentally, where’s a really bad place to be in a thunderstorm? On a bike.

    I squidged, dripping, into the garage and halfheartedly put away the tools which I’d thrown in there. And then remembered my uniform… ‘drying’ on the line. I continued to drip my way round the garage (wet, but not in a good way) and then wheeled Cherry in. I took my bag off the back of the bike. My mobile phone was sat end down in about an inch of water. Fortunately the MOT certificate was in a plastic sleeve (not just a pretty face, see), the phone however was less happy. I switched it off as I took it in the house, it switched itself back on. I took the battery out. I went outside, it continued to rain, I debated taking off my bike helmet, but instead decided to concentrate on making my uniform for tomorrow dry, so I pulled it all, stuck it inside, and I know no-one will believe me, but as I shut the door on the washing machine and switched it to spin, the rain stopped. I walked outside, yanked my helmet off and informed the universe that it was very funny, just this once, before coming inside and setting up a ‘drying room’ in my lounge using fanheaters so as to have bike gear for tomorrow.

    I still rock though. Even if I am somewhat damp.

  • A few hours my shiny metal ass.

    Did I say it’d take a few hours to get that bike on the road? I recall saying so.

    Yesterday I worked on it for the 4 hours of morning I had and got the brakes rebuilt. Not fitted, but rebuilt. Last night, after my 8 hours of shift work and 2 hours of commuting I got home at 1030, changed and headed out to the garage to continue working on my bike for an hour and a half. I got the brakes together, with brake fluid in, and working if ineffective. This morning I’ve spent a further 2 hours on the bike and got the brakes spongy but maybe acceptable. I need to stop, on the way to the MOT, and get a new sidelight bulb.

    I had to swap the exhaust from Claire on, because I noticed a hole in the one that was on the bike (oops, I thought it wasn’t quite *that* rusty. I may scrounge to Nikki to see if we can’t weld that back up). I’ve got an MOT booked for 1600, I only hope the bloody thing starts, I tried and discovered that the battery (not exactly the most cared for battery in the world) was giving an astounding 9 Volts… when not under load. I didn’t bother to see what the laughably pathetic load-voltage was.

    I also need to swap the clutch lever over, ‘cos otherwise it might fail on that (I’ve no idea how picky this MOT place is, it’s not my usual one which seems to have become very busy; presumably as all the summer bikers get their bikes MOT’d). Ironically, I got the SORN declaration through today; so hopefully I’ll be able to tax’er this afternoon, the day the DVLA’s letter saying the bike’s off the road arrived :-)

    Work yesterday was pretty good, except that I got the time for someone’s tablet moved, and then promptly forgot to give it. Frack. To be fair, yesterday afternoon was chaos in a tin; the ward round happened so late that it was actually occuring during hand over. I got all my competencies signed off, I now need the front sheet signed by Bridgit who’s my associate mentor, but the one who actually has the Mentor qualification. *And* in ultrasuper-good news, I talked to someone who worked at the hospital I’m applying for work at – apparently it’s generally a really damn spiffy hospital to work at; so I’ll get that application off this weekend, maybe even today. And in ultra-ultra-super cool news, Dee agreed to be my referee *smiley*

    All cross your fingers now, I need this job.

    In weird things, I was listening to Radio5Live (yes, yes, but AM radio choices are sorely limited these days. And I got sick of ‘Classic Gold’) and they played… American Edit. And were inciting people to download Mashups. And commenting on the insanity of one thing being classed as a piece of music ‘cos it’s licenced and the other being evil piracy and destruction of the original author’s work, because it’s not licenced. Sometimes I want to hug the BBC.

    Finally, I’ll leave you with the ‘treat me better’ video that James found (James is, incidentally, your source for online coolness),

  • Tired *again*

    So, today was a good day. At least, I think it was a good day. I worked with Claire, who’s really good at standing back and letting me work; which is really nice. I just feel so much more competent after days like that; it’s really what I needed, I’d started to feel completely useless. I got some advice from her a few times, which is what I wanted. Definately better. Yeah.

    The bike bits arrived today, I’m *way* impressed. Incredibly so. I only ordered them yesterday, and here they were. That’s proper Next Day. I’m debating fitting them tomorrow; if I can get the bike up and done tomorrow; well; that’d rock. However, I suspect I’d be ‘pushing my luck’ to get the bike MOT’d and Taxed tomorrow morning. It doesn’t stop the temptation being there.

    I also got a mail back from my Year head. It comprehensively answers the wrong question. I’m not sure why. *sigh*. See, If I can disregard my lowest mark, then I can just ignore the crap essay and concentrate on the future. Otherwise I’ll have to dig out the resubmission stuff. Meeeeh.

    Anyway, bed.

  • Progressing

    So, I rang BSA Regal and ordered the bits for my bikes; on the basis that I’d rather know that the Charlie’s brake calliper is fixed (and the iffy master cylinder is okay) rather than leave dodgy brake bits in a box where they can shock me later. Fracknuts, I should have got some brakepads too. Although, that said, the ones on Charlie aren’t that worn and could be slapped onto Cherry. Yes. Hrm. We’ll ignore that problem for now.

    That’s 50 quid spent, 30 on Cherry and 20 on Charlie. Not too bad really. Just hope it all works, although given the ultimate bizarreness of the weather recently motorbikes look less fun, especially since my gear is about as waterproof as a paper bag, it’s all up for renewal when I get paid, but hey.

    I also rang the govt. dept that’s been failing to sort out paperwork for me; they’ve extended the deadline again, but are getting a bit difficult about extending it. Given that it’s *their* fault that the paperwork wasn’t sent to the NHS in the first place; well; it feels a bit pot-kettle-black for them to say that the NHS is taking too long. Yes, it is, but if they’d’ve sent it when they said they had, then this’d’ve been sorted by now. I can’t ring the NHS again, not yet anyhow.

    I’m trying to get the nerve together to ring the hospital I want to work at. It’s scary. I’ve half filled in their application form, I just want to have a chat with them about the jobs, and so on. I hate selling myself, I’m not good at it. Yesterday I managed to pay the house money bankers draft back into my account, and the money I withdrew from my credit card (yeah, I know) back into that (which was to pay auction fees).

    It is again scary. I think moving up to B’ham or M’chester will be a good thing. It’ll save me money, it’s like a dry run for Canada – new place, new people, all that crap. Well, b’hams not a new place (it is, in a way, it’s changed so much since I was there). I just like having certainty in my future; and that ain’t what’s there at the moment. I should get on, I’ve got my dissertation to write too.

  • And pause.

    So, I went to see my mom (deliberate) this weekend; I’ve not been down for a while and consequently the list of things that needed doing was quite long. I did start to wonder about how my dad kept up.

    (skip past this bit for the wittery kate talk)
    I… bought fencing material and fenced off with barbed wire both ends of the river (after 6 years of people trespassing and damaging my mum’s garden the fight just got a bit nastier; incidentally, while Nikki I’m sure (being a farm-lass) would have had no problems dealing with barbed wire, I found it almost as much fun as it looked like it’d be); put up the new washing line; repaired the gate; removed the excess fencing from the gate post; ‘repaired’ my mum’s car door lock (it jams, locked, irritatingly); cleaned up mouse crap from high up where my mum couldn’t reach; put up a shelf and hangy things in the shed (well, technically, my mum, in a disturbing character change has decided to become much more independent (she’s perhaps fed up of having broken things around the house waiting for me to visit) so I drilled holes and she screwed the bits of wood up); I also prepared but didn’t put the edging up on the bridge (I think we need some ‘nicer’ wood). This took up the large majority of the weekend and when I left, just before lunch today I was knackered.

    I also checked and found out why the speaker in my car was working intermittently, the ‘quality’ soldering I’d done when I put it in (like a lot of other jobs) was rather botched, so it’d snapped. I put that on my ‘when I get home’ list. However, when I got home I did the supermarket shopping (Woot, I have food!); finally fixed the frying pan that’s been broken for months (now it has a screw made from some high-quality-metal or other which will I’m sure soon add the daily requirement of rust to my diet); the saucepan that’s had a loose handle and thus sat on the table for weeks; the broken wire to the speaker in my car (‘cos I couldn’t go to work without it working!) and now I am… knackered.

    Oh, I also watched Jean de Florette, with my mum, which turned out to be excellent and added to the strangeness (my mum had been excitedly showing me screwdrivers earlier in the day, a quality I presumed I’d inhereted from my dad…) when my mum professed a need for a widescreen telly. I tried and tried to persuade them when my dad was alive, but no need for a widescreen telly ever existed before… suddenly now, I’d given up hope and watching stuff on the ex-rental telly with the poor colour rendition and the flickering from bright to dark had become kind of normal. And then, suddenly, she’s all ‘I need a widescreen telly’. The world is going odd.

    (and stop skipping) 

    Anyway, I had a long chat with my mom about moving. About not being able to afford to stay in Bristol and thinking about moving Northward… I kind of expected a flurry of ‘no’ – me being further away will almost certainly mean less of me seeing my mum. But there was none. My mum basically said ‘for god’s sake, get on with it’. So, now I’m thinking about it more meaningfully. I’ve even got a Birmingham Univeristy Hospital application form sat on my desktop waiting for me to fill it in.

    I guess I’m starting to step outside my comfort zone again. Which is kinda scary. I was talking (I do a lot of that) to Trey about it; and it came down to the fact that I want to leave this country in 2 years. Either I can struggle in Bristol, probably not be able to get the kind of house I want, and so on; or I can move up North, get paid the same, live in a cheaper area, almost certainly find a house I actually want, or at least that’s appropriate and in my price range (and has a garage, hell, I’ve seen a few on Fish4 just scanning the listings). This will hopefully also allow me to save up a bit, and having a garage will mean that left-hooking Rebecca and getting her all prepped for the journey shouldn’t be so hard. So I’m going to give a couple of places a ring on Monday afternoon, see if I can’t scare up some jobs.

    Of course, this is in addition to writing my dissertation; and I’ve realised I really need to start preparing Rebecca for Pride. The call is still out, incidentally for Stewards. We just need two shiny people who’d like to be stewards around a shiny, shiny black Minor. Go look at (last years, okay, I know) the Pride of Minors website. The car that needs stewards is Fifi, the shiny black one, driven by our mate Guy. Go’wan, y’know you want to be a star…

    Anyway, I seem to have stopped, and I want to go play with this form, so I can get it sent off nice and sharpish like. So. Yes. I’m also very tired, and quite hungry (all I ate for lunch today was a slice of plum and chocolate cake).

  • Lacking in title

    I’m in the weirdest mood. I should be working, I’m aware of that, but I just feel vaguely distracted and; well; not entirely 100% there. I want to do *something* but I’ve no idea what, I’m kinda tired, I’ve got about 1000 words of Dissertation done which isn’t really enough. I ended up watching Dr Who (that is such a sweet episode) and then flumping through my music video collection watching things almost at random.

    I kinda want to listen to music, but I’m just… blah, really. I’d like to listen to music and lie downstairs reading a good book, but I’m slightly too tense to do that. The house auction is this week, and I want to know the result. To quote talking heads, I feel tense and nervous and I can’t relax (although, I’m not, as far as I know, a psycho killer).

    I think I’ve just got a lot on my mind (do I ever not have?); the LHD bits arrived for Rebecca (not entirely helpful in some ways, ‘cos I can’t *do* anything with them but look at them and go ‘ah’). I’ll probably ask Lauren if I can use her yellow paint to mark it as an LHD part.  But that – and the stuff I was saying after the weekend – has left me very thoughtful. My future lies before me, but at the moment it’s all slightly unattainable. Worse than that, there’s nothing I can really actually *do* about it.

    I also found, if I book direct with KLM or Air Canada then the flight to Toronto is actually *cheaper* than paying a chunk with Nectar points. Even more frustrating; the cost of flights from Toronto to Anchorage, which I was kinda hoping to do to visit Kara, Kaisa and Trey (et al.) adds 700+ dollars! Err, which is 350 extra quid. So it’ll cost me 300 quid to fly from the UK to Toronto and 350 quid to fly from Toronto to Anchorage? (Although it is *actually* about the same distance. Meh). Anyway. Yes. Hrm. I was thinking, well, hell, I’ve got 10,000 points on this Nectar card for me to just ‘spend’ then (although we’ll save that thought until we get the flights booked) – and y’know what? I discovered that 7,600 points gets you a 30 quid dvd. *sigh*.

    I think something may have changed in the Nectar points system.

  • Crisis of Confidence

    So I’m staring at my dissertation. All… let’s check now… all 343 words of it and I feel completely fucking lost. I know what the research says. It says being a Gay or Lesbian patient in the healthcare environment sucks. It says you’re likely to feel insulted, abused, have insufficient pain relief, it says you’ll be ignored, not connect with your healthcare workers, will present later because the chances are you’ll have had an unpleasant healthcare experience in your life. One of the bigger studies had 44% of GLB people avoiding healthcare interactions. 44%.

    I just don’t seem to be able to find any words. I keep thinking what my supervisor said – that you’re trying to say what the research says and critique it. But it’s so hard, because there’s very little disagreement. And after today’s bike incident I’m just feeling a bit crap. A bit useless. And I know I’m not. And I know this is just a temporary glitch. But having a phonecall from my mum who’s getting grief from the kids in near her house again and not being able to do anything about it, and the bike, and being completely stuck with my dissertation, it’s all adding up to sensitive and unhappy Kate.

    I could do with a shoulder to cry on today and perhaps the curling up with someone on a cofa would be good. It’s times like this that being single is less fun.