Mostly lemon based

Category: I’m a mechanic me…

  • I know I was plotting her demise…

    …but this seems a little unfair.

    I’d been hoping to ride Cherry (Red ‘zed) until the tax ran out, the MOT expiring shortly afterwards. The slight and occasional clatter from the top end telling me more than I needed to know about how sick the engine truly is (‘cos she’s had a top end, less than 5000km ago).

    Another week and I’d’ve been happy.

    And I’m used to random bits dropping off a ‘zed. It’s normal. Usually they’re retrievable or they’re easy to replace. But today she had to show off. It’s easy to replace, if you’ve got the time, being only a bolt. Probably an M14 bolt. Only, it’s a specific length, and I don’t happen to have one spare. It’s also the bolt that holds the exhaust on.

    Thankfully she opted for dropping the exhaust less than a mile from home, and with some careful propage I could ride home, albeit somewhat noisily.

    I guess it’s time to retrieve and wire up Charlie. Lord knows when I’ll get the chance to do that. Soon, though, I hope. Because the fleet is rapidly diminishing in size.

  • An update from the mines

    Work’s been suprisingly pleasant of late; perhaps everyone’e scared of Swine Flu and haven’t been coming in? Can we please keep it that way? I’ve had some odd ones though, in triage. People who’ve broken things days/weeks ago, not really in pain, slight, possible, deforimities and off to Xray they go, then we find out they’ve completely broken their humerus or fractured radius/ulnas… Also sick people who’ve actually been sick. It’s been quite like actually working in an emergency department.

    Then, to make things even more strange I was working in the Resus area; normally when I’m there it’s like there’s a neon sign that goes up outside and we get overdoses, cardiac arrests, infections-gone-septic and the odd bit of major trauma (at least potentially). I am like a magnet for the very sick and accident prone to go and be ill and fall off something. But on this occasion I had one person who was very sick who was there when I arrived – and some potentially sick kiddies who improved (one of whom kindly vomitted on my top).

    I was quite confused. Why wasn’t the red phone ringing constantly? Why was I stood there doing regular obs on people instead of running past going ‘oh crap! His BP is 60 systolic! It was 120 before!’ en-route to administer some drug to prop some other patient up for a bit.

    Not that I’m complaining mind; I’ve quite enjoyed it. I’ve been riding my little red bike to work and bike, slow as it is, and now it’s got a brake light working again I’ll be much happier* (so it is, of course, raining today). Ironically, the MOT and Tax run out next month, so I’m contemplating using it as a spares bike to build up Charlie. I looked on e-bay and MZs aren’t worth anything anymore. It’s rather sad. They’re on there really rarely, and now the company has gone, completely, as opposed to just being bought by new people every 3 weeks, they seem to have disappeared.

    I’ve also wired the exhaust back on to the DAF – there’s only about a foot between the missing exhaust hanger and the next one, but really… I’ve ordered bits of Morris Minor to use to hang it all back together properly(ish) – and will hopefully get a chance to do that this weekend. I need to get Vixy up on ramps and check the belt tension on her… but… the weather forecast looks attrocious. Which does not bode well :(

    Vixy’s booked into my local garage for the rear brakes to be done, too. I just need to actually source the parts. My local place can get them but they’re more expensive than getting them shipped from Holland, although he’s having a look through his personal stock and will give me a ring back with a price for that… apparently. Although he’s yet to ever actually ring me back about anything.

    I’m hoping, also, that the bits of car for Jejy will arrive before too long and Jejy will get a new clutch drum and new shoes, and an inlet manifold without a huge crack in it.

    The garden continues to progress; lots of things are flowering and producing a great deal of pretty, we’ve got more Swiss Chard than we can eat, the beans are growing into great tall bean-stalks; we picked up some more plants when my mum was here (some more dogwood, and some other things which I’ll journal about later) – which have gone in. I’ve clearly found an effective way of making it rain though, which is to remember to water the new plants. Then it pours with rain for the rest of the week :(

    Anyhow, Lunch and then Work.

    * My initial assumption was that the contacts were dirty &/or sticking, and would clean with a few uses. That has occured before, but having ridden to work it wasn’t working. Riding it home, I presumed the bulb had blown; but no. I checked that and it was fine. Finally, in a fit of enthusiasm (and desire to not be squished, and having got fed up of doing hand signals) I dug around the foot brake switch on which both wires had broken. This made me happy because 10 minutes later they were resoldered and the bike has a brake light again :)

  • The Usual Uselessness of Slough

    So, I went to Allparts, complete with nice printed diagrams, and they looked at me like I was some kind of talking fish. Having wandered off with them for a minute they came back and informed me that one part number didn’t match anything current and the other they could order specially at around 40 quid for the pair.

    The conversation about ‘right ends but different lengths’ did not go well. In fact, it went the way most conversations I have with motorfactors go, unless I go in there and ask for what I need very specifically*. Fundamentally it seems based on ‘you’re a girl, you must be wrong’**. I should’ve borrowed one of my right-sexed friends to go in and ask*** :-/

    Having informed me that it could not/would not fit; was totally impossible and please could I now go and take my difficult requests elsewhere I gave up and tried my local autofactor who stocks the past 25 years of auto parts manuals on their counter. Unfortunately, the knowledgeable teeth-sucking ‘you-want-what-well-I-suppose-I-can-probably-get-it’ guy is on holiday, and the wee bairn staffing the shop was unable to (a) find the right catalogue and (b) unable to help (though he did at least *try* and they know that when I go in and say ‘I want such and such’ that I’m usually right about what I want).

    I’ve spent and uninformative hour trawling the internet trying to find an equivalent parts match, now I’m hunting for an online cataglogue of brake hoses so I can find something appropriate myself. I’ve posted much the same as this message on the DAF Owner’s Club forum, in the hopes that someone can be more specific about the parts. I’ve asked an online brake part supplier for a quote.

    I wanted to spend the day reading the book that I’ve stolen from Kathryn (I didn’t expect her to leave it behind when she went to work today, but she has…).

    I have another post to do, but it’s shower time now…

    * By which I mean, lie. When I order bits for the Minor I rarely say I want ‘Ital 1275 parts’ instead saying that it’s a Mini from 1983 or somesuch, since Ital doesn’t seem to cross reference anymore.
    ** I do have a chip on my shoulder about this. It took months to build up a working relationship with my local autofactor in Bristol where I could ask for something and they’d trust that it was right.
    ***See; Chip. Shoulder. It just gets old

  • Moop

    So, another week of nights approaches, and we’re trying to get a car ready to go on holiday. The minor’s exhaust is fouling the suspension, which should be fairly easily fixed. Rebecca is the most likely candidate; only the noisy gearbox and worn diff and suspension being a problem. Jejy’s right out. Vixy’s heading that way too. In fact, Vixy is looking like she might end up being a parts car for Jejy. In so far as I might pinch the engine, and possibly the seats.

    Jejy then gets all new hoses, all new front brakes, new shoes, and a 21k mile engine. Vixy gets a worn out 79k mile engine and shipped off to a new home, keeping her new brake shoes and brake cylinders.

    In other news I forked out for a new charger for the batteries. Years ago when I bought some Uniross rechargable NiMHs I went for the nicer charger that they had. It did NiCds and NiMHs and all seemed well, until, obviously, I looked deeper into the ‘my batteries seem to die awfully quickly). It turns out it can’t deal with more than 2,000mAh batteries. It’s timer, not ΔV based, which means it’s never, ever charged the batteries properly. The new charger (VapexTech, had a good review, somewhere) is ΔV based (although it has an over-time shut-off), sports specs for 2900mAh batteries (my highest capacity ones say 3,000mAH but probably aren’t after having never been charged properly), and came with 4 shiny new 2,900mAH batteries. Hopefully the holiday snaps should be snappable.

    Also, in the name of longevity it runs on anywhere from 100-250V at anything from 50-60Hz. Woot for portability.

    Now, I’m gonna go shower and get working on the DAF. I need to get the rear brake drum off, because there is, what looks like a leak. Impressive, I feel, since when I tried to bleed it no fluid came out. A whole and proper WTF moment.

    Anyhow. Shower. Car*.

    * We were meant to be going protesting today. Can’t though, ‘cos we need transport. Granted we don’t need transport more than we need to be able to breathe, but it’s all a matter of timing :-/

  • ‘m okay!

    So, my good friend Nikki rang me up after the last post, concerned that I sounded very down and wanting to check I was okay. She’s kind and thoughtful like that.

    So I thought I’d just say, I’m okay. It’s perhaps a healthy dose of realism time. I’ve been sticking solidly to the “the house will sell for enough and we’ll go to Canada” belief because of the options we’ve got it’s my favourite. To use the house metaphore, it’s the one I’ve built foundations for, I’d been looking at the plans and preparing to get contractors. It worked thusly:

    Buy house
    Fix house
    Sell house, use funds thus obtained to enable us to
    1) Go to Canada
    2) Me to pay off *all* my debts
    3) Have some savings to live off in Canada if it all goes pearshaped
    And I’d added:
    4) Hopefully have enough that some of those savings can be scooped off for our notional world trip in a few years time.

    There wasn’t really a plan B. I knew that the housing market was going to plummet in just the way that bricks do, I just hoped it did it after I’d (now) we’d sold. Unfortunately, my hopes lacked the strong foundations of reality.

    The new ‘plan’, for want of a better word, is to finish the house (because whether we’re living in it, or selling it, I’d rather like it not to niggle like a splinter. The unfinished floor in the lounge, the dirty old door* in our shiny new kitchen), get it valued and make the rest of the plan based on the outcome of that.

    – Sell and get to Canada ASAP
    – Sell and move somewhere else in the UK (I don’t need to clear my debts to do that**)
    – Enjoy the lovely environs of Slough.

    I’m rooting for A, hoping that at worst B comes off and trying to think about ways to make C more bearable. Ironically, the house is coming together to be a really lovely place. The garden should be beautiful this year, and even more so next; there should be fruit and fresh veg, herbs and gorgeous flowers…

    If it weren’t for the builder’s yard right behind it would be glorious*** .

    Anyway, so I’m okay. I’m just…. disappointed.

    In other news, I just realised that I’ve owned Rebecca 17 years. That was quite a shock. And in another quirky thing I’ve never noticed before; she was first registered on my mum’s birthday. How bizzare is that? It’s funny how coincidence pops up on you.

    Now, What shall I do with this last hour before I go to work? I’ve swept the bedroom (and put clothes away), and looked depressingly at my Student Loan deferment thing (I think I may finally have to actually start paying back the loans****). Hrm, maybe I’ll watch some Holmes on Holmes.

    Tomorrow is another day, and I’m hoping a day when bits of DAF might turn up.

    * Needs the 1960s hardboard overcoat taking off, then it needs stripping and painting.
    ** I don’t, I suppose, technically need to clear my debts to move to Canada, but it really makes everything a lot more complicated if I don’t. And it makes living much harder to do. It’s bad enough here where I can go and chat and shuffle my lack of money around. There… well…
    *** It *was*, when I moved in, a wild untended lot. It was pretty.
    **** Confusingly my loans are owned by two separate companies. I’m not sure if I’ll get two separate student-loan-deferment letters, and need to make payments to two separate companies. That would be distressing. But only one of them has been flagged as ‘needing payment’ in this letter. It appears I won’t make my dream of never paying them back by remaining a poorly paid wage-slave.

  • Another day in the dirt

    Not all car stuff today; to skip the car stuff just scroll down to where it proclaims that car stuff endeth. :)

    So, today I shuffled the cars to get the Minor on the drive, and whipped off the ill-fitting exhaust, separated the 45 degree segment at the base of the downpipe (which I spent about 40 minutes attacking last time with ‘penetrating oil’, this time I got the Plus-Gas on it, and the thing just came apart. Simple as that). Then, with Kathryn’s help, we reattached the exhaust.

    Only took from 11am to 3pm. I’m not very good at exhaust fitting, and having done it we drove into town and… it’s rattling against something at the back. Usually this is the exhaust hitting the fuel tank; not a soothing noise at the best of times; so that’s something to attack later.

    Then I spent about half an hour adjusting the mixture. She’s been running rich and idling too high. A bit of a tweak to that and she’s now idling at a much more sensible speed and lord knows what the mixture’s doing. I suck at setting carbs up, I keep meaning to buy a colortune to aid in my attrociousness. The DAFs have a much more ‘relaxed’ carb than the HiF44 in the Minor, which is slightly worn (not terribly so, she doesn’t hunt horribly at idle) and which has proper mixture adjustment.

    Still, she’s running okay, so I’m going to presume it’s alright for the minute.

    Next week will be more car stuff, hopefully, in so far as I’m hoping that the brake bits will arrive for Jejy and Vixy and we can get them assembled.

    Then comes the difficult decision, which of the cars to take on holiday with us. We’re looking at around 1000 miles plus whatever motoring we do while we’re there. The minor’s swivel pins are worn, but I don’t know how badly. Jejy’s a big no-no, without the new clutch drum she’s not going anywhere far (so that’s easy), but Vixy? Vixy’s kind of an unknown quantity. Unknown quantities aren’t good for holiday relaxing, I find, but on the other hand she’s been recently serviced by a garage, she’ll have new brakes, she’s got a spare pair of belts in the boot…

    …and only 21k on the clock.

    We’ll see.

    Anyway, hopefully we’ll have less car-posts for y’all once this is done. Then we can return to the ‘house posts’

    car stuff endeth here

    Mind you, I ought to do a garden post because the garden is *awesome*. Kathryn spent time today breaking up soil and prepping it, then planted some of our wild-flower seeds; she’s hacked down pruned the buddleia, out the front, which officially needs to be dug up and moved into the raised bed at the front, but since the builders haven’t quoted (or contacted me) then, uh, that’s not quite happening yet. The back garden is looking really very nice; when she takes the photos off her camera and flickr’s them I’ll linky.

    It is just amazing to look at the ground and go ‘my god, they’re beans. They are our beans, that we planted and they’re growing. I could get quite into gardening, I fear. It’s really lovely though, to go out there, in the nice weather we’ve been having and see plants we planted growing, and indeed growing well. It’s not like either of us is particularly ‘green fingered’, but we’ve got good soil, and my mum’s around to help and advise us (and Kathryn’s mom is available for advice too :) ) and it’s come together to be a really restful place, potentially.

    And the lie and deception which is the gravel-over-concrete path appears to be working.

    Anyhow, now it’s time to make dinner. So I shall scoot.

  • Progress, but not in a very useful direction

    So, I spent some time fitting the radio ‘properly’ to the car (there’s a bit of a limitation to how neat it was going to be without damaging the dash, and I didn’t want to do that*). The Rover cassette radio (with presets no less, thanks John!) has been fitted into the ‘standard ISO’ holder -attrocious quality as it was, the wiring held out the way with tie-wraps, and all of it neatly crimped with my new crimping tool (nowt exciting, just a plain ordinary press as hard as you can crimper).

    I bought a stick-on glass mount aerial (yes, I know they’re not great, but I really didn’t fancy drilling holes in the bodywork to fit an aerial; and quite frankly, unless it’s roof mounted I think people like to snap them.

    The total cost of that little toy? 10 quid.

    I need to fix down the speakers at the back – I ‘fitted’ them yesterday but as I said, they’re just resting on the parcel shelf at the moment.

    I’m still waiting for the elusive call back from the auto-factor. I’m now 99% certain the parts won’t be arriving today, if he can order them, and in a few minutes I’m going to declare that time’s up and order the bits from Danny in Holland.

    It’s frustrating because I could have ordered them this morning and spent the day sorting out the Minor, but instead the whole morning’s been spent doing footling little jobs and watching TV waiting for a phonecall…

    …’I can’t get them anywhere’
    [thinks: “well why the frack did you not actually call and tell me that?!]
    “Oh, that’s okay, I’ll order them from Holland”.

    *sighs*

    Customer service here sometimes sucks. But at least we can do maths…

    * In the end I opted to drill two very small holes (2.5mm) under the dash. Everything else is run through existing holes. Should anyone ever want to make her standard again they just have to weld up two tiny holes and paint over it with black.

  • Another long day in mechanic mode

    So today was hard going. Started at 9:30, finished at 17:30 with only a break for lunch and a couple of quick trips to (a)Halfords and (b)Proper MotorFactor.

    At one point I was so demoralised I stood staring at Vixy wondering both how she’d actually managed to stay running so well, wondering if the fault I’d found had anything to do with the poor idle and failure to up-revs on braking, and contemplating whether she should return to the internet in search of a new home.

    However, thankfully (I think), I opted not to do that.

    Faults found and rectified today:
    – Idle / Braking: There’s an Electro-Magnetic doojit on the carb, it wasn’t actually screwed in. I’ve no idea if it was sucking in air around the barely attached doojit, but certainly, doing it up screwed with the mixture. Then I found that the pipe which covers the join between the inlet manifold and one of the inlet pipes (it’s got a flexible segment made by having a sleeve and a tube with a bit of rubber over it) was completely beyond saving. It was cracked and split and a mess. It’s been replaced. The idle’s now much better and the engine does it’s thing when you put your foot on the brakes.

    – Oil Leak: Turned out to be the oil-pressure warning sensor. It was leaking like a secret government meeting filled with double agents. Having spent an entertaining twenty minutes with my newly aquired ‘shop towel’ (like J-Cloths but less strength in tension and way more absorbent) cleaning gunky oil off bits of the engine I lay under the car waiting for the dripping to start. Sure enough, there was the leak, oozing it’s way out of the pressure switch. Amazingly my local autofactor had one in stock. Took them about 20 minutes to find it, but they had it.

    – Radio: Wired in and working, but I still need the bracket and an arial. Remarkably it can pick up Heart 106 (not that I like Heart 106, or it might be Star 106. It’s 106, anyway) despite not having an arial. The tape bit sort-of-works, and sound comes out of the really rather silly Goodmans Speakers plonked on the back shelf. I do need some means of attaching them as they don’t actually appear to have any means of attachment.

    Discoveries of a non-awful nature:
    – According to my wildly innacurate Autodata manual, the DAF has the pre-1972 wiring scheme. This is odd for a late ’73 car. However, the Autodata manual is noted for it’s similarity to the Haynes Book of Lies in the respect of ensuring things are accurate (like, for example, the non-existent Lockwasher I spent time angsting about).
    – The exhaust really is an astonishing piece of bodgery. It changes diameter twice and appears to have been made by someone going ‘hey, that’s a big ‘ol chunk of straight exhaust; that’ll do’.

    Things not fixed today:
    – The brakes.

    Discoverys of an unfortunate and upsetting nature:
    – Jejy’s brakes are dangerous. I took her to the store to get the oil pressure switch and had one of those ‘oh-dear-god-I’m-going-to-die’ moments when I put my foot on the brakes at a junction. The slightly weepy front cylinder has become the ‘pouring brake fluid out in a very generous and lubricous nature thus ensuring stopping is a gentle and largely terrifing experience’. I had a look on arriving home, having got Vixy fairly much as far sorted as I could, and basically, the brake cylinder is the fucked. I’ve asked my local autofactor if he can order 3 brake cylinders for me, if not then they’ll have to come urgent-first-class-next-day-as-soon-as from Holland, which’ll be pricey.

    Still, I consider myself to have rocked today. You may all praise me :)

  • The sun is shining, it’s a beautiful day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Oh, and I watched house.

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

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

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

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

  • It’s a rockery

    Or, possibly a breeze-blockery. One or other.

    Before I get started on this update, can I share a moment? We were expecting (to use a very loose term, I think faintly hoping is more what I was doing) that we would have a delivery of top-soil today. Our local top-soil merchant having given us a price which is much better than one of the national companies (but also means it’s almost certainly not screened, graded soil). Yesterday they didn’t turn up, and I had a little book running in my head regarding today’s excuse.

    Sorry, we…
    a) had problems with equipment
    b) over-ran on the previous job
    c) got stuck in traffic coming back from our previous job
    d) had to close early due to a sudden onset of bubonic plague
    e) were overrun on site by a horde of marauding miniature nuns (skateboarding nuns, no less) demanding all our topsoil for a new convent garden they were building

    It was of course e, uh, I mean, a, today. But it did make me wonder, do builders have a magic-8 ball which they shake when a customer rings? Or do they have an excuse of the day message e-mailed to them?

    Apparently he will ‘personally’ deliver the topsoil tomorrow. I will believe it when the annoyingly large pile of dirt is on our driveway.

    Anyway, we went to Tummies for lunch, the service was somewhat lackadaisical, not dreadful, but not brilliant. I was slightly less than impressed that they pulled the panini from the chiller (and Kathryn’s sandwich) – at the price they’re charging I’d expect a bit better’n that (given that for much less in a similarly nice cafe in Brizzy you pull things from the fridge and they toast ’em). But the food was good, and it’s a pleasant (and less paint-y) environment. And we needed to celebrate Kathryn’s test-passitude.

    Anyhow, after shopping and a somewhat lax period of web-browsing, I headed out to the garden to move rubble. I’ve moved a slightly distressingly small amount of rubble, although I did create the basis for the breeze-blockery (aka rockery, aka good-way-to-disguise-a-pile-of-rubble). It includes, at the moment, an impressively large lump of concrete which I have no means of getting to the tip. Once the earth arrives, we shall pile it all over the damn thing, and then wedge some nicer stones in it, and some of those rockery-type-plants and no-one shall know the evil lying beneath; at least, not until they go forth and attempt to move it.

    Plan is to put a fence segment up behind it (between it and the compost bin) and thus hide the big-black compost bin from the view out of the windows. Of course, the big plain brick wall will still be there.

    Oooh, there’s a lot of fumes in here now, I may have to move.

    Anyway, the undercoat’s gone on the door frame, Kathryn’s working on my anniversary prezzie, (I cheated and bought her something, but it must be said I just looked at it and wanted to give it to her right there and then, so ordering it and waiting was pretty good). Rebecca’s booked in to have her exhaust sorted on Friday*, and the oven’s on to cook dinner.

    Today has been a day where much has been accomplished. Ra :)

    ETA: The laptop, incredibly, has a bid on it. i.e. it has sold. Even despite the description.

    *I should ring the gearbox reconning company about the gearbox but can’t pay for it until I’ve been paid anyhow. And there’s still no signs of the king/swivelpins; a somewhat significant component in the front suspension which have now been on back-order with most MM companies for over a year. A situation which borders on the ludicrous.