Blog

So, I should be writing and editing my paper, although I’ve set aside tomorrow to do that, while Pepper sitting, again. I might hide myself in Nikki / Kate’s office and write like a demon tomorrow. I’ll be spared many of my traditional escape routes, being as it’s the weekend I shall have less on Twitter, and my RSS reader is likely to be less full of ‘stuff’ than it is on a weekday.

So today, at work, I discovered that I was, in fact, right. I do earn my annual leave up on a day by day basis, not on a monthly basis (apparently). I wasn’t that angsty about it, just asked because I’ve got two random days to do on a weekend after I’ve notionally finished, so it would be handy. I just got a message back saying I need to ensure I take my annual leave that I’ve accrued. So it seems that for, essentially, my first 2 weeks of work at the new hospital I’ll still officially be employed by my old trust, and just be on days off and annual leave. Which is a bit weird. Unfortunately, there are insufficient staff for me to take the annual leave at the weekend, which means (I think) that I’ll work a week of nights, have one day off, do induction week in my new place, work two days in my old job, then start at my new place properly… I may have trouble remembering where I’m going on any particular day!

I’m now into the day-counting phase, with 13 shifts (including the 2 random ones) left to go, and people at work asking me every few minutes when I’m leaving, which is odd. I’m looking forward to long days though, and working only 3 (long) days a week, as opposed to at least 5 days every week.

Hopefully this means that progress will start to happen on the house again, which is something I’ve been missing – and finding very frustrating. Because while I’ve been sick there were so many things I was meant to be achieving. Also, I really, really want to finish my desk. Really, really, really. I’ve made the top – it just needs trimming to the right width, sanding and oiling / varnishing. I think I’ve abandoned my beautiful height adjustable, counterbalanced, standing / sitting desk. Why? Because I want a desk. Now please. I find working on my paper much easier at a desk, and since my dissertation is going to be starting shortly, I’ll be wanting to have it to dissertate at, or whatever the correct term for writing a dissertation is.

Still. In two weeks time, things should start to happen.

In the mean time, I need to fix my bike*, and I need to fix the garden gate so that I can actually get the bike out of the garage and go to work in the mornings without carrying the bike up the entire length of the garden, through the house, and out onto the street. I was going to fix the garage door…then I realised that because of the two chunky padlocks on the outer door, that won’t help, necessarily.

On the plus side, since getting home I’ve sat down and listened to Gladsome, Humour and Blue (If you’ve not encountered them…), and Amy Winehouse. I’ve drunk some delicious and refreshing black tea with lychee, and sat in our knock-off ikea bendy chair, and now feel a lot more human.

I am still not ‘entirely’ well, and this is reflected in the feeling of my peripheral vision closing in and generally feeling floaty as I did all day today; which made looking after the really, really sick person with the fairly uncommon and totally unexpected diagnosis a bit more of a challenge than normal. Quite honestly, I can say I’m awfully glad that I updated his obs chart when I did, because while his observations had only deteriorated a little since I’d taken over his care, the trend that became apparent when I sat and charted them shortly after his consultant review made me sit up and take notice. And monitor him more closely. And then ring the medical team 15 minutes later with a phrase that you don’t really want to come out of my mouth.

“Did you see Mr X?”
“Yep…”
“Err, he’s become quite poorly….”

When I start a request for a review with the comment that I think they’re poorly, that means they probably are really quite unwell. Understatement tends to be my mark**, so ‘quite poorly’ is never a good sign.

And so it was.

And so he was transferred to a hospital at which I’ll shortly be working. Where they have posher surgeons who can fix what ails him. We hope. He apparently has a 3/4 chance of survival, which isn’t so…bad.

* I now have instructions. A handy PDF of the original BSA service sheets. But no time. Argh. I also have brake blocks, which I may go and treat myself by fitting now.
** Although I have resorted to blunt truth on occasionally, the one that springs to mind is dealing with a particularly obstructive obs & gynae registrar (not in this trust) who didn’t seem to grasp that someone exsanguinating from a vaginal bleed would be their speciality whether or not she was pregnant, and that right at that moment, as we had the consultant and two ED registrars, and another nurse desperately trying to keep her alive long enough that he might get to see her, no, they would not be coming to chat with him, he needed to get his lazy arse into the ED now, please, and maybe, if he was lucky, we might have sorted out a pregnancy test by the time he arrived, but only if she was still alive and we’d sprouted more limbs.

So, as with most things at the moment, last year’s review is a bit behind schedule. I had a bit of a stressful morning for reasons which I expect I’ll go into at some point, but not right now, and am endeavouring to unwind by looking at last year – which given the insane stressyness I recall from last year is, perhaps, unlikely to be the most positive thing! However, after this I’m going to put what is, I hope, the final coat of paint on the ceiling upstairs – which should mean that I can start painting the corridor downstairs. That will bring the finishing of the house closer…

…all of which tells you how long it is since I started this. It’s been in draft for a while, and I quickly finished off the year to get it up online. I actually had a lovely morning with this little fellow,

who I’m looking after for my friends.

Anyhow, so 2011.
(more…)

So, I have lacked in productiveness, at least at home in the last few weeks. This is not (broadly) my fault. I had work (uni work) to do (and still do). But mainly work has been incredibly hectic. As in, I come home and sit on the sofa and do nothing because my feet, calfs and knees hurt. Actually hurt.

And so the list of things that need doing remains unchanged, indeed it’s slightly longer, because I should look at the brakes on Chester, as they’re sticking a bit…

Okay, so let me preface this by saying, sometimes I’m a dumbass.

So, when we were doing the house, I think we considered insulating under the floor. I certainly vaguely thought about it, but with the exception of the last house, haven’t really thought of the floor as a place of great cold. Which is dumb, because when I think about it, the floor has always been a cold place. It’s just, when I was a kid, I’d sit on the floor with my back against the radiators (for USian readers, remember, most houses in the UK are heated by hot-water radiators, not by forced air). I didn’t really think about the floor, anyhow.

Our last house was on the chilly side in the lounge because, I assumed, I’d put the radiator on the wall away from the window. This is because it was a hideous, hideous experience to grovel around under the floor. And also, because it saved me a chunk of money not to do that. And also, it saved me taking up another floor.

Anyway, for many reasons I decided not to bother. ISTR that I didn’t bother in the bedroom either, for the same reasons, but the bedroom was never quite so cold. Clueful readers will realise that since I overspec’d the radiators for the rooms, the rooms should have been warm anyway, unless, perhaps (dumbass) there was cold air pouring in from somewhere. Doh. Anyhow, in this house, the radiators were spec’d by the plumbers (with the exception of the bathroom one, where they told us the minimum and we picked one that would do, and the kitchen where we’re a little underspec, but it’s the kitchen, and I tend to think of kitchens being somewhere that you cook, and so it warms up while you cook, and lo, it does’t matter if there is marginally less heating in there than you might ordinarily want).

And yet, it’s been cold here. Cool, anyway. Not freezing, but never terribly warm, and the heating’s been working it’s ass off – running much of the day – trying to keep up with the warming the house.

And every so often, I’ve looked at the gaps under the skirting (baseboards) and thought I should seal them. Then yesterday I got around to submitting the meter readings for our gas and electricity bill.

We use 100% clean electricity. Gas – not so much. It’s gas. It comes mostly from the North Sea. So, I still have guilt about gas. I have guilt about clean electric, too, because of things like wind turbines near wibble’s house, but our electricity usage isn’t too much of a problem. However, the gas bill came as a teeensy bit of a shock. Not an unpayable, dear god what have we done size shock. No. But a ‘oh arse, I really should have fixed that’ type shock.

So, in the last day, the inch wide gap betwixt floor and wall in the hall, where the was no skirting board – fixed. Taped over and then new skirting cut, fitted, and sealed against the floor and the wall. The lounge? Today I cleared each wall (‘cept the piano wall), taped it, sealed it, and put stuff back. And whilst I was doing it I was horrified – because I don’t spend that much time grovelling in the corners of the room – and it was like lying in a gentle cold breeze of fresh, cool, air. All that energy we were pumping in to the room was being gently wafted back out of the room. Arse.

There’s still one wall to do, which is sitting there mocking me. I’ve done the corridor – at least, the bits of the corridor outside the hall cupboard, and that too was a chill refreshment. I need to run the network cable up and then I can seal behind the skirting too (because where the ring main runs down the wall, there’s no plaster at the moment). And while I’ve been grovelling I’ve been thinking about insulating under the floorboards. I had not seen how cheap the (60% recycled glass) rockwool is. I hate rockwool, incidentally. I think it’s awful, awful stuff. But 12 quid would essentially insulate the underside of the house.

The problem is, I can insulate the main body of the kitchen (but not either side of the fireplace, I think); and the hall, that I can do, but I can’t insulate under the lounge without taking out some bricks to make a passageway into the lounge. And I imagine that they’d have done that rather than cut holes in the floor before now, but they cut holes in the floor rather than do that… so I assume there’s a reason for not doing so. I’m still pondering it, it’s not likely to happen for a few weeks anyway, but now as I hear the drone of the fan-assisted kitchen heating I think ‘should we not be doing that’. Of course, doing it before we had the all the floors down, say, whilst they were reflooring the kitchen? That would have been a clever plan. At least dropping the stuff down there so I don’t have to drop down under the stairs, drag it to the front of the house, then drag it back down the length of the corridor to get to the point where it splits off to the kitchen, dining area, and back room. Feh.

So, today I forked out for a 1945 copy of (the) Cycling (magazine) Book of Maintenance. I was going to get a 1938 reprint, but it was cheaper, even with extortionate postage to get the 1945 original edition. I’m led to believe this includes details of how to service a BSA three speed hub. Look forward to excitement on that front.

I’m wondering if it also has details of how to change the hub on a Westwood rim, because the bearing in the front hub is a bit iffy. Ideally I’d just change the bearing, but I’ve no idea if you can do that on a cycle hub. I’d assume so, but again, no idea what I’m doing here. It’s an interesting experience.

I’ve also ordered a new set of brake shoes, which will hopefully be arriving in a few days time. Impressively, it was cheaper for me to buy the book second hand and pay £5.00 for shipping from Abe Books and to pay £2.00 shipping to get the brake blocks from another online retailer than it was to buy the reprint and the blocks and pay the shipping just the once from the other retailer. Can’t say as I’m overly impressed with their pricing.

Also, whilst at the M-Shed yesterday (we went with my Sister, her Husband and their kids) I saw this:

Now, looking at the back of my bike there are a large number of small holes in the mudguard:

Which, I suspect, once held a similar wire thing, presumably either to stop panniers or skirts from landing up in the spokes. My question to the assembled masses is how in hell to I recreate it? I’ve still got the little metal dobble on the back at the axle to which they would attach, but the wires, where to get them from?

So, today I rode a bicycle in the UKs best bicycling city – alledgedly.

I collected Molly from the Bristol Bikeworkshop, who’d been terribly positive about the chance of fixing her gears…

She had been rather lackadaisical about gear selection, leaping randomly around and making riding somewhat entertaining. I was also wanting some new brake shoes, the original 40’s ones seeming to me to be… lacking in braking facility.

Anyhow, they rang yesterday and said that Molly was ready for collection. They were pretty keen for me to collect, on the basis that they were lacking in storage space, so I turned up after walking* there and hopped onto my trusty steed. Well, not quite.

See, I’ve not ridden a pushbike for…years. I mean, the last time I rode any proper distance was riding Kate’s pushbike when she moved to Bristol…which is probably 8 years ago? And the discussion at the shop I discovered that they (a) had no new brake blocks (and thus I’d be using the ones that came with the bike to get home), and they (b) had only managed to get two of the three gears working. Still, the general once over and service cost a tenner, so I was happy enough to pootle off.

I pulled out onto the road, and a quick test revealed that my brakes weren’t really going to stop me in a hurry. Or indeed, necessarily at all, if the road were steep enough. However, on the slope I was on, both brakes together would bring me to some kind of halt, albeit one which needed to be booked well in advance. I pootled off down the hill again, some trepidation filling my bones, and attempting to see as far ahead as humanly possible, so as to ensure that there were no surprise stops required.

At the bottom of the hill I looked, hopefully, for some kind of direction as to what they’d like cyclists to do. Having looked and considered the matter, I feel that what the city planners would like cyclists to do is die. Horribly. I have decided that in future I’ll skip quietly up onto the pavement and skidaddle across the huge paved section because having made it part way round cabot circus on the bike I decided that enough death was enough, and that I’d rather hop up on the pavement where I might not be crushed by some distracted driver. Again I mention, Bristol is apparently the UK’s best city for cycling. The best. This is the veritable Peak of British Accomplishment in the arena of cycling. I only mention that as an aside. Something one might wish to consider as we continue our journey.

So I waited for an appropriate gap, slipped back out onto the road and (stopping at red lights as they occurred trundled down the road. As I crossed one of the bridges a bus (from the company abus, I think) pulled infront of me, and then promptly stopped at the bus stop causing me to quickly write in triplicate the stopping request, send it urgent same day delivery to my bike’s brake levers who replied with only a few bureaucratic and procedural concerns which I was able to address promptly, and forthwith some marked degree of retardation was applied, allowing me not to trundle straight into the back of the bus. Whilst I wasn’t exactly whipping along at speed, I suspect such an experience would not have endeared me to cycling, the bus, or the bike.

Having slipped around the bus I headed for what is probably the only decentish bit of the ride. Around Temple Meads station there’s some fairly modern / decent road planning and cycles are granted a route around the massive roundabout which, should they decide to take it, takes them well away from the traffic. I liked that bit. I wasn’t quite sure where I was meant to rejoin the road, but scootled along for a while and dropped back onto the road where there was a dip. Then I head over the bridge and to a set of traffic lights that have traffic sensors. That resolutely refused to change. Now, my bike has more steel in it than most modern bikes, so if it were going to change for someone, I’d be a good bet.

But no.

Fortunately, it wasn’t busy, and I headed through the tunnel in a gap and headed onward to the bit I was least happy about. There is a road near us which has a ‘cycle lane’ in the least accurate sense of the phrase. A cycle lane in paint only. They slapped some paint down and went “there y’go”. It’s not the worst, no, not by a long way. My favourite is this (I’m sure this isn’t the worst cycle lane)

View Larger Map

Which involves the cyclist dodging lamp posts and trees. Lots of them. And is horribly uneven. And next to a busy, narrow road.

Anyhow, this is not a patch on that. It’s just a busy road, on which people tend to drive faster than the limit, and which has cars parked all the way down one side. This means the cars coming the opposite direction to the cycle lane are slightly on the wrong side of the road, which means that cars going the same direction as the cycle lane tend to occupy the cycle lane. It’s not their fault, it’s simply poor design.

And then there’s the more fun bits, like the lane starts of nice and wide… and then sloooowly gets narrower, before finally (and cyclists will already be expecting this) stopping. No warning or signage. One minute you’re on a bit of road officially marked as a cycle lane, the next you’re fending for yourself on a busy main road. So that’s nice.

Despite all that, I actually rather enjoyed the experience, the bike was fun to ride, and didn’t hurt my body in any more than a kind of ‘You are seriously not used to this activity’ way, which is good, because it’s been really painful before. Now I just need to find a 1930’s book on hub gear maintenance, and see if anyone’ll sell me spares for a BSA shifter, otherwise I fear I might have to get a new wheel / hub. She could also do with new front bearings, at some pont.

* Yes, I walked the 3 miles to the bike shop. Go me.

That, my dears, is the sound of a very flat battery driving the starter motor on a GT550.

Thanks to my dear friend John, the as yet unnamed Kawasaki now sports a working ignition system. Despite the LIES of the previous owner (just laid it up and the battery’s run flat my arse) it seems, so far, to have just had the two faults:

This was the earth strap:

Having replaced that, however, there was a disappointing lack of life. Although the battery’s not in great shape, we were getting about 11.5v at the battery, but at the ignition we had only 1.3v. That is a bit weak, and it turned out to be impressive that we were getting anything because a small chunk of the once copper wiring which had been the ignition positive had corroded away to become a thin layer of copper oxide:

Having lopped it off, and replaced it with a fresh connector (not a chocolate block) and sealed it with self amalgamating tape (optimistic, I am) this was achieved:

Well, that and the aforementioned “Whirrrrr….click”. So I guess now it’s time to get some fresh petrol and a new battery.

I also, being as I was in the fixy mood, repaired the cable on the worklamp which I noticed was a bit flickery. I think I’ve noticed that before, and tightened the screws in the plug, but it didn’t work. Today I looked a bit more closely and it looks like the wireclamp on the plug was done up by someone wanting to do some kind of test of strength. It’d nearly chopped the cable in half…so I lopped the end off that, popped the plug back on and lo, working lamp. Then, just by chance – well, while I was testing that lamp I noticed the plug on the extension lead (that came free with our chopsaw and) that I’ve been using down in the garage a fair bit, was awfully hot. A quick look at that revealed something fairly horrendous:

Not only were the cables sickly – there’s no earth. Seriously, no earth on an extension lead in a workshop. Geeze (Louise). It now sports a brand new cable, sadly PVC so not quite as flexible, but it has three cores and has a whole bundle of safetyness that was previously lacking.

Productive, today, I feel.

I also modified the carrier / pannier rack off my old hybrid bike to fit my new (older) BSA. Unfortunately, I need slightly longer bolts to hold it in, so I’ll have to go source them.

Oh, and had a trip to Halfords that removed all the impressedness that I got yesterday, but never mind :)

So, I potentially have a new job. Nothing confirmed yet. Not handing in my notice until I’ve got it written in old fashioned…errr…laser toner on dead tree format.

But there it is, I’ve got a new job.

In preparation for this, on Sunday I shall be tootling down to the garage to see if I can resurrect the Kawasaki (possibly on Saturday, it depends on which day other social things are happening). I’ve also, because I am weak and fear the internals of a 1930s three speed shifter, booked the bike into the Cycle Co-Op for them to fix it. In his words ‘incredibly there are still loads of these that still work, so hopefully we can fix it’. Yes, I’m weak, but also I’m time-restricted.

Things to sort also, on the bike front, are lights (it does have a lamp of some sort fitted, but I’d like something of the ‘visible from 500 meters’ sort that I’ve started to see around, a reflector, and… yeah, we should be good to arrive at work exhausted. :)

On the plus side:
Money to be saved – at least £120/month
General improvement in fitness