Mostly lemon based

Category: I’m a mechanic me…

  • ERR: Empty List

    So I think I’ve reached the end of my list of people to inform I’ve changed name. I need to make a trip to the bank, and one to the post office (to buy 17 million stamps); I’ve made an appointment with the doctor to go and discuss what to do now they’ve discontinued a medication I’m on, and why I’ve not heard from the allergy people, and could they please put my nose-spray that stops me spending each day sneezing on my repeat, please, please. Oh, and did they get my blood test results back?

    I’ve sorted out getting the final handles done in the kitchen. I’ve filled in a form to reclaim tax because apparently nurses can get something towards the cost of laundering uniforms and buying inordinate numbers of socks, which I didn’t realise, and which is handy. I’ve washed down the bin and put it back in the kitchen. I’ve eaten lunch, made myself a very tasty cup of earl grey tea, transferred a chunk of debt from one credit card to another (with a much lower rate of interest).

    I’ve ordered the form to change my driving licence (but not the one for my passport), I’ve requested prices on the DAF parts needed to service the DAF (which is now making a noise – to coin a phrase – “I don’t think it should make that noise”) – in fact, it’s making a worse noise than when we parked it a few days ago. I’ve e-mailed another person about a gearbox for the minor (the first person I asked ‘d got rid of theirs ‘weeks ago’) – and am becoming increasingly convinced that it’s making more unpleasant noises than it was when it first started making unpleasant noises.

    The shower, at the moment, looks more like it’s sealed than it has before. I don’t wish to test my faith, but I’m a little hopeful.

    I’ve popped an envelope around the corrected timesheet that got sent back to me for a night shift I did a few months back, and all my cars/motorbikes will soon be registered to me in my shiny new name.

    I’ve *even* washed the ‘working on the house and car’ clothes, so that I can do some ‘working on the house’ and ‘working on the car’. This includes my very fetching boiler suit, which, well… fits attroicously. If anyone, anywhere, knows of a company that does boiler suits / jump suits for women, that’d be handy. Ideally cheap ones, because they get covered in oil and gick. (Shock: I’ve found one company that lists a women’s coverall / overall / boiler suit / jumpsuit: http://www.gbrworkwear.com/dickies-ladies-redhawk-front-coverall-wd4839w-p-822.html). The annoying thing is that going to a car show you can pick up loads of second hand and not too shabby overalls – for men – which is what I did last time. But having breasts meant that I ended up with a huge size tent like coverall (although it does say something like Singapore Aviation on it, which is quite cool).

    However, while it sounds like a roll call of accomplishment, and my list is slightly marred by the fact that I *meant* to do the DAF service today, but excused myself from even looking at it (despite the fact it’s been more or less dry all day) because I didn’t have any workwear to wear under the car. Which is, to be fair, a not unreasonable reason for avoiding getting down-and-dirty-with-the-DAF; but at the same time, had I have thought about it, and been a little more prepared I could have put the stuff in to wash before hand. I’d also feel less like I wasted much of the day browsing the interwebs. Which I did. But hey. Sometimes you need a rest.

  • Unadulterated warbling

    So, more from the delayed update fairy.

    Today Kathryn awoke me with a kiss and the information that Obama had won the US election. I 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 voters  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 I 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 I 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; I appear to have sourced a 3.9 ratio Diff for the minor. This will mean (a) she’ll go faster for less revs (the original diff is 4.22:1); (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) I need to get off my arse and sort a gearbox. The diff in question needs reconditioning, but honestly? 3.9 Diffs don’t come up *that* 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) should be able to manage it. No, forget that; we will be able to manage it.

    Sadly, the DAF has developed a new noise; although the DAF owners club reckon it might not be such a disasterous noise as I first thought – so the Minor’s due a service, and the DAF is due a service, and I 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. What happens now is up to the gods. And now? 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.

  • I’ve found a new toy to desire

    So, let’s list the automobilia I like:

    Classic cars
    Small cars
    Quirky vehicles
    Two stroke engines
    East german stuff
    Simplicity
    Insanity.

    Oddly, the Minor fulfills very few of these, but is my favourite. Perhaps because minor’s are my first automotive love. MZs fulfill a lot of these, and trabants (which I don’t own any of) also meet the criteria pretty well. Our little DAF (44) meets the criteria being small and strange, but something else has caught my eye:

    DKW Car

    Apparently this is a DKW Junior dating from 1967. It also meets another criteria which I didn’t mention – it looks all sad. Look at it sat there on flat tyres, it *wants* to come be with me. It sports (and this is awesome) a three cylinder (this starts well) 750cc (awesome, a ridiculously small capacity!) two stroke (score!) engine. Woot.

    A car which is almost certainly without any merit at all. It’s German, not East German, sadly. Which detracts slightly from it’s incredible Kate-attracting powers. Fortuately I have neither money nor space for a vehicle which almost certainly requires a raft of skills I don’t posess. If anyone wants to buy it, shipt it and gift it to me in Canada then you’re very welcome to :)

    I note they’ve got a couple of sad little enfields and also sad little DAFs, and frankly a whole great bundle of sad little cars going at their auction (the Linconshire Bubble and Micro car museum are having a clearout) – sometimes it’s fortunate we have neither money nor space :)

    In other news, the Kitchen should start being fitted today. Time of arrival depends on time of delivery to the company doing the fitting.

    And I actually took last night off sick. I’d been feeling a bit off, and on a whim (and because I felt like I was going to either faint or hurl on the floor of Lloyds while I was out getting money to pay for the kitchen) I stuck a thermometer in my gob. Scoring a not-bad 37.7 degrees C (99.9F) I thought ‘hrm, perhaps I am unwell’ and unilaterally opted for a day of being at home. As it happened apart from a faint nausea and general vague unwellness (frustratingly non-specific) I probably could have gone to work, but I might have made myself iller.

    In good news, I spent this morning ploughing through ATNC and am now at a stage where I can safely say ‘Hah’. I don’t know any of it, but I’ve read it all, and that’s surely got to be worth something ;-/

  • Where’d autumn come from?

    So, yesterday, while being chilly it didn’t feel icy cold; today I had to wipe the windows on the car before moving and it felt pretty darn nippy getting into ‘becca. The house, if you leave doors open has that cold-cold feeling, and I’ve actually turned the heating on (although this is no-doubt assisted by the fact there’s a 1100mm wide hole in the rear wall which is ‘boarded up’ using the cunning technique of sticking 4 nails in a board loosely applied over the apparture.

    I love having builders in…

    So, today is serious ATNC day. I’m up, I’ve given up on the hoped for early arrival of the builders and after about 10 minutes of wandering around the house hunting for the old ATNC manual (they’re both the same, but the new one didn’t survive the post so well and hasn’t got my hand-scrawled notes in the margin). I also have a pile of CDs next to me which need ripping (‘need’, is perhaps more accurate). We, on our trip to the states got:

    Radiohead – In Rainbows
    The Zincs – black pompadour
    The Linn Youki Project – (hash*)01
    Sub Debs – She’s So Control
    Folk Impolosion
    The Duhks – Fast Paced World
    Blinker The Star - Bluish Boy (free single)
    Graham Coxon – The Golden D (free single)
    Joal Rush – Imagination (free EP)
    spinART’s bundle of joy (free promo album from spinART records)
    Jean Claude NAIMRO – Digital Dread
    The Pierces – Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge
    Regina Spektor – Soviet Kitsch
    Sonya Heller – Fourth Floor
    Ramona the Pest – Little Knives

    I’ve also still got my copy of Seanan McGuire’s Stars Fall Home to rip (because my Hackintosh was having a sulk about CD Ripping, and the Shiny Mac’s CD-Rom’s finicky; but hopefully with Max we seem to actually be having some luck. I’ll see though, when I actually listen to the first CD Rip of the day :) ).

    The irony is, the idea was it’d be easier for me to listen to my music once ripped, ‘cos I can listen ‘anywhere in the house’ to ‘any cd’. Only, since the 10.4 mac and the 10.5 mac don’t like talking all the time, and the linux PC I’ve not sorted out networking on, and frankly, the Music ‘n’ video (10.4) mac is louder than I’d like – but the network’s not quick enough to stream video over (actually, it might be now…but at any rate I’ve not got a silent machine to put in the lounge to be the video / music player) – so actually I end up not listening to as much as I’d like. I rather liked the dinky shuttle PC with it’s touch screen – that’d be ideal because then I wouldn’t have to turn the TV on to select a track, which is more hastle than going to the CD box and getting the darn CD out :)

    Never mind.

    Anywhy, it’s time for me to set to and work (now I’ve found my ATNC manual) and learning shall be afoot. Incidentally, if anyone’s got about a spare 12-14 hours, I could do with them. I need to service the DAF and am running out of occasions when it might actually be (a) warm (b) dry (c) in time to do it. It may have to get done next weekend before nights, just so it’s *done*.

    *Now, the problem with using an old PC keyboard on a mac is not knowing where some of the keys are, in this case, where the hell have they put the hash (aka pound) symbol?

  • 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 money  (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 :)

  • In which the computer says no, Kate gives in, and adds more stress.

    So, yesterday after my Violence and Aggression training (I’m just not aggressive enough with patients ;) ) I headed in to Theale to attempt to get the newly MOT’d Jejy Taxed. The government are usually overjoyed to make off with your cash, but giving a tax disk to a non-V5-having vehicle owner is a discretionary act, and may actually not be possible where the V5 lists the car as having the wrong tax band (Disabled == free tax; I’m not disabled, so need Private / Light goods == not free). At any rate, the chap was friendly, polite, cheerful, and determined not to give me a tax disk. More frustratingly I have to go *back* to Theale when I finally do get the V5 (the timescale for which is entirely dependent on whether the old owner deigns to send back the letter saying ‘yes, I’ve sold the car’) – because they can’t simultaneously issue a new V5 *and* change the tax band. No, they’re two separate and distinct processes which cannot be combined. *le sigh*

    So I rode back, and on the way back came to a decision. I would get a new bike jacket. My old jacket has done 5 years of hard abuse. It’s seams are disintegrating (relying on the hidden for extra-strength seams), the zip is broken, and it doesn’t even make a pretence of being waterproof anymore. Riding in the rain had become one long shower… since I may be stuck commuting on the bike for a month, possibly more, since the Minor continues to be a disaster area (did I mention, my old 1300 engine was apparently the subject of a welded repair both to the head *and* the bore, and is thus not worth reboring and rebuilding), and the V5 for the DAF could take 6 weeks to come back…

    Not only that, but I’m hoping to do some Agency work this week, although ironically today (for the first time in several days) I’ve not got a message saying ‘please come work for us’. Argh!
    So I stopped off at Hein Gerick (well, stopped off == rode through Sloughland’s awful traffic) and examined the huge range of women’s jackets (ha, all 4 of the textile ones). Was seduced into buying a better one than the one I was going to get (it’s more waterproof than the cheapest one, which I was looking at), piled it all onto the back of the ‘zed and rode home.

    It’s black, again, which is not what I really wanted; I wanted something with better visibility than my old jacket, but they didn’t have it in any other colour. Mind, it’ll show the dirt less, which is probably good given how filthy I was after riding home yesterday.

    And more stress? Because having so little money that bills are impossible to look at without wanting to hide, working more than full time, planning 2 wedding ceremonies (although, to be fair a lot of that’s being done by Kathryn’s Mom, Kathryn’s Dad’s Partner, Kathryn’s sister and my Mum), running 2 classics (well, theoretically) and struggling to keep a very sickly MZ on the road isn’t stressful enough I’ve agreed to go on a 5 day ATNC course (ATLS and Nursing, not observing this time)… partly in the week before our wedding.

    It’s one of those ‘take the opportunity or possibly loose it for years’ moments, and biting the bullet I took it.

    I’m scared witless, but there y’go. Anyway, I’m going to shower and then chase the agency and see if they need anyone in A&E anywhere this afternoon. I’m all set to go…

  • The advantage of sleep deprivation

    So, I would like to post about work; obviously. I mean, who wouldn’t? My job’s dead interesting – and I get to see all sorts of things I’d love to talk about. Some people seem to have this art of writing about nursing, paramedic/tech-ing, doctor-uh-ing (er, some of those didn’t work very well) in an interesting and entertaining way, and they also seem to have got down the art of not-getting-caught-at-it pretty well. I, on the other hand still exist in a world of paranoia, where talking about work is something I rarely do on here, and when I do it’s often a password protected, friends only post.

    Which is a shame, really. Because if you get me talking about it, I seem to be quite entertaining. This is apropos of nothing really, but I noted that I seem to (if I get in to it) be able to amuse Kathryn and my mother (and my friends) with my tales, but when it comes to putting them on paper they always feel dry  and uninspiring; like week-old-bread.

    But hey.

    There are several advantages, for me, of sleep deprevation (which is what I do to myself after my nights, and which is why my stomach currently feels like someone’s turning it inside out, I suspect. After all, I’ve been awake for 23 hours, 12 of which were spent at work). One of those advantages is I get to look back on these pseudo stream-of-consciousness rambly posts and go ‘my, my head really is not on right after nights’, and the other is something I discovered when I was MZ’ing in to London to get the Bike MOT’d.

    If you recall, the bike broke down, and although my approach to fixing it was initially dumb, I gave myself a lot of leeway because I knew I was phenominally tired. I took much more time than I normally would, and didn’t berate myself for mistakes so much. And when I felt that deep frustration welling up because it wasn’t working or going right I stood back and spent a few minutes contemplating the sky, or the huge amount of traffic, or just how truly rusty the petrol tank is.

    I’m actually a better mechanic when I’m exausted, because I’m more careful, and more willing to step back and re-examine where I’m at and what I’m doing to check that I’m not being dumb. When I’m full of energy and not so self-aware then I tend to assume the object is just being stubborn.

    So, anyhow, I got home to find that the Hub Puller, ordered 2 weeks ago had finally showed up. My convincedness of her postage costs, and the fact it took her 2 weeks to send it to me mean there’ll be some less than positive feedback on e-bay. But anyhow, finding it there meant that I could attack Jejy. And so, having scrambled some eggs, read my interweb and sat for a bit I set to on the brakes. Hub pullers are really very handy when removing splined on hubs. Thankfully the previous owner’d used copperslip, so the hub actually was only stuck on the brake. Having freed it, and adjusted it, I examined the other side and found it was just in need of adjustment.

    At last, the time had come. With some trepidation I set off to the MOT centre, and the journey containing such exciting discoveries as “oh, the brakes really are very 70s”, and “mmm, isn’t sitting in traffic fun (accident and lunch-time rush)”. By the time I got there I was convinced Jejy would fail, the brakes seemed only just adequate to me… and this is what I got:

    MOT Cert!

    I am still in awe. I look out and can’t quite believe that the DAF that has languished in a garden for 3 years passed it’s MOT first time. There were a couple of issues which he mentioned as needing sorting (while it’s not an MOT failure, because there’s no catagory for it, he didn’t like the missing indicator repeater, and the brakes passed the G-force meter test that the DAF has to go through (it can’t go on a rolling road, they damage the transmission) he felt the handbrake was weak (it is a bit)).

    I can count the number of MOT’s I’ve passed first time on one hand…. so it was quite a shock :)

    She, incidentally, performed flawlessly in the heavy traffic…

    She is, however, full of twigs – many of which have been blown up through the vents, and down through the vents, but moving the little ventilator thingie still feels crunchy in a ‘crushing dried leaves’ way. :-/

  • Polar opposites.

    So, yesterday I spent a few hours on the DAF and found out why she leaks (the windscreen wiper spindle seals are purely ornamental at the front, the window-seal-spreader strip is not fully in at the rear, and the mastic around the screen has failed), painted the sill and reattached the finisher strip and, bizzarely, replaced the windscreen wiper blades (how else d’y’think I noticed the spindle seals)!

    This done, we decided to take advantage of the summer sales.

    We’ve been contemplating a new set of garden furniture for a while and the summer sales are on at a wide variety of home improvement places. Having examined the options we opted for a set of director’s chairs and a table made of “hardwood” stained with teak-oil. This choice made, we went to B&Q to check the prices… and found them to be 15 quid more than the comparible homebase one. Now, B&Q is about 8 feet from our house. Homebase, a mile.

    We walked to homebase, discussed it, and in the end opted to buy the homebase set. The idea being to sled-it back along the grass (since we aren’t worried about the box it’s in). Yeah. We got most of the way but the last stretch is all pavement, and not sled-able. We struggled for a bit until a very nice polish chap offered us a lift.

    We considered the options. A: Take up the random bloke’s offer and hop in his car for the last 1/4 of a mile. B: Drag/lift/curse the furniture back to the house the last 1/4 of a mile. Exhausted as we were, option A was definately the best idea and we were given a lift back to the house by a really very nice polish gentleman. This is the opposite of our last experience with a local pole, who was, it must be said, both drunk and irritating. To be fair, at 3 in the morning being drunk on our doorstep and waking us up may have given him an unfair disadvantage in this race; but honestly? It does a country good when you meet someone truly nice who does something for no gain at all.

    We got back to the house, assembled the furniture and I was surprised to have the individual who I’ve been railing against for damaging our shed appear at our back gate. A surprisingly civilised conversation took place and he’s paid for a new shed. Granted a very cheap and probably not great quality shed. The kind of shed which’ll only last a few years, unless well looked after, but it’s a new shed. We’ll repair the base and rip out the old shed… more rubble to haul away. But hey.

    The new shed, also on sale, will be arriving in the next week. If anyone fancies giving us a hand removing the old one… repairing the concrete and putting the new one up… no? no one? Poot.

    Anyhow, having got the garden set it’s now raining *lots* and the DAF is slowly filling with water – because now it’s got no holes to go out of…and I’ve got to go to work in an hour and a half, and so am debating alternately weeping (for how wet I’ll be) and cursing (the e-bayer who one-week-on from purchase has failed to send me any notice of posting, and who’s not yet replied to my ‘where is it’ e-mail – and thus has kept me from my hub-puller).

    What we have done, however, is watch Juno – which I heartily recommend. It’s an excellent and quirky film – aided by the music of Kimya Dawson (who I think is awesome but continue to believe is mad as a teapot; her lyrics are just excellent but so strange). It’s really well shot, and I had little tears in the corners of my eyes as the end approached.

    And now we must go and make Potato Latkis, for it is time for an early dinner, as I’m working from 1830…

  • Plus content entry

    This week has been incredibly hard work – mostly due to short staffedness; well, that and doing 1.7 extra shifts. I know it’s bad when work call me at home and invite me to come in early,  because I’m about an hour away from work, and if they’ve reached the stage of calling someone who’s going to take an hour to get in, it’s going to be bad.

    We’ve actually been short, I think, every day I’ve been on. Our new method of work requires one extra nurse, and the shifts quite simply aren’t being filled. No one wants to do either of the new shifts – the early one is not different enough from an ordinary early, and in fact makes you leave at a worse time. The late shift goes on waaaay too late; meaning that, well, no one wants to do that either.

    Which has lead to us really, really struggling. Now I’m qualified to not-triage (we do something simpler and quicker than triage), this has also lead me into a minefield of being annoyed and frustrated. It is the most unrewarding job of all time. One of the most amusing things is that we pick people up who we think are likely to need an xray (mechanism of injury, obvious deformity, etc) and then will inform the doctor that we suspect they’ll need an Xray. Quite often they’ll listen to the mechanism of injury or the description from us and just order it without seeing the patient. In fact, I think I’ve only every had one turned down – who was later Xrayed anyway. That certainly doesn’t mean I’ve caught all the people who need X-rays, but means I generally catch the ones who are likely to. But much to my amusement, a poster has appeared at work reminding nurses that we’re not allowed to independently order Xrays for patients without our knowledge being assessed. I presume someone has been doing that; but the fact is, the Xrays that get ordered by me, following discussions with the Dr and them writing the card? Well, it’s essentially the same thing…

    I do, however, want to get a lot more knowledge on proper triage assessment, because I’d like to be better able to assess injuries.

    One other thing I’be picked up from a much more experienced nurse is to not say that I’m a nurse. We have a variety of protocols for ‘nurse led referrals’ – where we can see, assess and refer the patient without involving a doctor. Ear, Nose and Throat; pregnancy and gynae problems can quite often be sent straight to the specialists without wasting the patient’s time on two examinations and telling the story several times.

    This is a great idea – except that when you say it’s a nurse led referal, some docs have a strop and say that they have to be seen by an A&E doc; this is often all the more frustrating as you’ve spent 10 minutes bleeping them and trying the wards they’re on to try and find them. But my new method – which is really the only method I’ve known, is to say “Hi, this is [my first name] in A&E, I’ve got a referral for you…”. This seems to work much better, although they do still get a little stroppy sometimes…

    I’ve actually though, looked after a lot of really charming and lovely people. People who you feel real full-on good about looking after. You shouldn’t have favourites, and I have certain masochistic enjoyment when I’m looking after the stroppy indepentent sort, or the mad-as-a-badger-with-UTI-or-other-infection sort, or indeed the dementia-pissed-off sort. But looking after nice people who are just nice, is really a bit pleasant.

    Anyhow, all this work has got in the way of quality snuggling time with Kathryn; which has been quite distressing. We have however made some progress on the wedding and the ceremony in the states. Although they’ve both ended up being lots bigger than we originally planned. It’s funny how these things expand and expand :)

    It’s also led to slow progress on the DAF. Well, that and the hub puller’s frustrating absence from my life. All that’s left to do to make it road-worthy (not, you note, finished or anything. But roadworthy) is to reattach the end of the bumper and to unseize the brakes (well, I say ‘all’, it may be that the brake cylinders are shot). These are potentially trivial jobs, but I can’t actually *do* the latter because the hub-puller ordered from e-bay more than a week ago hasn’t turned up. The seller’s not answered an email yet, either, which is also frustrating.

    I’ve busied myself with prepping (in a very limited sense) and painting the new metalwork. One side’s got a coat of Nissan Arctic White on the sills and a bit of the back quarter (which looks a little whiter than the rest of the car, but never mind). It’s a gash job, I should, really have spent time with filler and carefully prepped things. But I didn’t have time for niceties and I’d rather get paint on there to protect the new metal than worry about getting it looking pretty. It also turns out my wire-wheel has vaporised, which is frustrating. I’ll have to go and pick up a new one. because the area by the rear window needs cleaning up before I fill it.

    And the side I sprayed (with one coat) and had left all the masking on so I could spray today? Well, it’s rained overnight…

    ….which is terribly annoying. I’m hoping the sun (which has come out now) will dry it out and then later in the day I’ll be able to throw another coat of paint on. I’ve had to take off all the newspaper though, which is quite bothersome.

  • Been meaning to post

    There’ve been a bunch of days where I thought I should post. There’s been stuff at work, and stuff about the wedding, and then there was a conversation I overheard, and then stuff about the DAF, and stuff about the Minor. It’s all been happening, and thanks to hayfever and exhaustion I’ve just not got around to it.

    I barely feel like getting around to it now. I woke up at 0652, which thankfully is somewhat better than the 0430s of late, but I’m feeling fairly awful. I appear to have got through almost an entire toilet roll, and the remainder of the box of ‘nice’ tissues and still can’t breathe. I’m tired now and my brain feels faintly like treacle.

    I shouldn’t complain though, we had a glorious day yesterday – and ignoring all possible hayfever related risks we headed out on a 4 mile wander down to Windsor. Apart from a brief stretch past the water-works (or sewage works, as they really are) the walk’s really beautiful; meandering down around the Jubilee river and then (rather more nicely) around the Thames. Eton Wick is also terribly pretty and filled with the kinds of houses I actually rather like (although it does appear to have been attacked by the 1970s, somewhat).

    We sat at the bathing place of Athens, we lay in long-grass eating cheese sandwiches and muching on Tomatoes, lay in the early evening sun and then wandered around Windsor. I picked up a couple of rock and roll gramophone records – which are extraordinarily loud (I can only actually listen to them by putting my portable gramophone in the next room, since it’s not as posh as Nikki’s and doesn’t have a volume control (or, as you might call it, a door)). I also got a Ketelbey gramophone (In a Persian Market / In a Monastry Garden) – Ketelbey was one of my dad’s favourite composers – and while I have his 45 of In a Persian Market / In a Monastry Garden I fancied hearing an earlier version; and there it was.

    At some point when I have more money I’m tempted to go back – because they had a couple more of the rock gramophones – which I’ve a bit of a fancy for – but it’s probably best that it’s too far for me to ‘pop’ back and get them. They also had pianola rolls, I’ve always fancied a pianola, but thankfully don’t have one (I can’t even get my own piano into our house!)…although there are several on e-bay for £0.99…

    We had one less positive incident, we got some cake from a cafe as a treat (we didn’t look too carefully at the menu and it said ‘organic cakes from £2.50’) – we’d already felt that their prices were a little high – but when Kathryn went to pay… £7! For two very average slices of cake. Sure they were nice, but not £7 nice.

    It put a bit of a dent in our otherwise excellent day. We rounded it off by wandering through Waitrose, buying a rather bizzare dinner (but very nice) and then lazing on the sofa at home drinking cider and snuggling. Photos from the set are here…

    Today I have kitchen based intentions, and have spent the morning trying to persude VMWare on the Hackintosh to see the USB (it won’t) so that I can update the music on my MP3 player. If anyone’s got software to make an iDJ 360 do it’s database update on a Mac or Linux, then that’d be very handy. The best I’ve found is this topic on the Ubuntu forum which is a few weeks old and hasn’t changed for a while…

    Tidying and cleaning also needs to happen today.

    Next week we have *lots* of DAF related activities scheduled. Painting the new metalwork, although despite my request he’s thrown underseal on some bits (I went to go and look, and the new sills are very shiny, solid and sill-ey); there’s floor in some of the boot and the driver’s side floor actually looks like floor now. To be restoration grade it’d need filler and smoothing and various things, but to be ‘useable’ and ‘solid’ it needs painting, and some waxoyl in through the clips for the trim and that’s it. The Brakes need to be unsiezed – they’ve resisted despite moving the car around a fair bit – I ordered a hub puller from ebay after ringing every auto-factor in slough. One had a bearing puller (“universal”) but had no idea what size it was, it was an order only item, and cost the same as the one on e-bay which I knew what size it was…

    So, the plan for next week is paint sills (and other new metalwork), unsieze brakes, check over (again), MOT, Tax (difficult, we’re still lacking a V5) and drive around happily. The mog should be done in about 2 more weeks, apparently. So then we’ll be back up to full strength….