Mostly lemon based

Blog

  • Repenting, only quite badly.

    So, today I got the call, the good call, from Jonathon at JLH. After our little teething problems (the alternator bracket broke on the way to Bristol and the alloys weren’t quite fitting right – presumably the minor they came off was ‘different’ to my minor) he’d very kindly taken the car straight back up on the trailer – and fixed her. And he rang today to say they’d found the cause of the problems, and thus I could have her back.

    After the usual house-cleaning hiatus I made a sprint to the station which, after one slightly annoying change* got me to Leamington Spa. Leamington Spa is a very pretty 1930s, I would guess, station still sporting many of its awesomely deco features. It also sports a sign which lays out the Railway Byelaws which relate to parking, one of which is deeply unnerving**. But enough about that – Jonathon picked me up, fed me coffee, and I hoped into Rebecca to head home.

    This time the journey went without a hitch… well, ish. There’s a couple of ‘creaks’ I’m putting down to everything being new (at the moment) and if I really *really* give her some unsuitably inappropriate quantities of ‘wellie’ then she suffers from what feels like fuel starvation after a prolonged run. Not that I’d do such a thing, obviously. I suspect there’s some crud in the carb, which will need looking at, but not today.

    Other than that, she’s performed flawlessly, and while no-where near as quiet as our ‘modern’ beastie, she’s way quieter even without large chunks of trim (and with no underlay). She’s also unrepentantly a petrol consumer. She’s way more efficient than she was thanks to much more sensible gearing – the motorway is now something you can cruise down as opposed to screaming down (although she seems to *want* to go faster ;) ). But there is something delightful about the *WHSSSHHHHH* as you put your foot down and the carb desperately sucks air in trying to meet a demand far in advance of it’s abilities. And the *RAWR* from the engine as she goes ‘YES! FASTER!’ – the 1275cc engine is a way more industrial beast than the 1098cc engine (which is in turn, more industrial than the sweet and innocent 948cc). At tickover she sounds much less smooth, but out on the road she just… wants to go.

    Which is bad.

    But good.
    (more…)

  • Options

    So. Arse. That’s the word that comes to mind at the moment. Arse.

    We’re currently looking at options for ‘where to stay’ when we get to Bristol. Being as we need to be in Bristol for a bit and the house hasn’t sold yet, in 3 weeks time I need to move into somewhere, and Kathryn also needs to move into somewhere the week after.

    So we looked. Caravan sites – there appear to be two that are reasonably conveniently placed for both of us – one of which is fully booked. The other of which doesn’t have any prices online. Not that we have a caravan mind, oh no. But we could sort one. We’re also considering some newish-friends who were selling an RV if they’ve not sold it yet, and therefore might like to rent it to us for a few weeks.

    We also looked at shared houses.

    Basically, the financial commitment of either of these options is… well, not something sustainable, which I find a bit scary. Still – I’m going to ring my new work and ask about nurses accommodation. Experience tells me that it’ll be expensive and awful – but hey – it’s worth checking. I’m also going to ring the other camp site and see if they have anything available.

    But we need something sorted… which is a bit stressy.

  • Thoughts and Tea and Blurgh

    So, as I may have mentioned earlier – I had a lie in this morning. By a lie-in I mean ’08:30′, not anything particularly exotic. Unfortunately, despite having lived in this body for 32 years I’ve still not learned that my body has a way of punishing any slight transgression of the no-lie-in-unless-you-suck-down-a-pint-of-water-at-the-same-time-or-are-ill rule.

    I get a raging headache. And sometimes feel a bit sick. I’ve been rewarded with both of them, ameliorated slightly by Paracetamol (aka tylenol or acetaminophen), ‘brufen and food. However it’s still there, quietly kicking me in the head. I’ve decided, therefore, to go for a walk after this cup of refreshing tea.

    I’ve also decided to put the washing machine through a hot wash because it smells a bit, well, mank. Okay, a bit stale. It’s not awful but I’ve no desire to wait for ‘awful’ so I think fixing it now is a good plan. I’ve also sprayed the pepper…

    … with some organic bug killer because the fracking thing is covered in fruit-flies, again. I’ve no idea where they come from, but hopefully this will prevent the little white eggs turning into more of the buggers.
    (more…)

  • Great weekend, sucks to be home.

    So, we’ve had a really awesome weekend. We were planning to go to Bristol Friday night for a slightly belated birthday meal with Kate (of Nikki and Kate) – but handily, Kathryn got an interview just around lunchtime. This meant that there was no point her going to work (she’d arrive – and need to leave to get to Brizzle, and then if she went back to work after the interview she’d arrive in time to go home).

    So instead we piled straight into the car after tidying the house for viewings – and drove down there. A lateish lunch with Nikki and Kate after the interview and then off to look at houses. We revisted our favourite and were disconcerted to learn that other people are ‘seriously considering an offer’; we visited another which – I’m pleased to note – is a good second choice (and has a cellar, which is pretty nifty, although we didn’t get to see it because there’s lino over the entrance (in the floor of the kitchen). Annoyingly it’s not much cheaper than our favourite, it’s only semi-detached instead of detached, and some git has popped around with the magnolia paint doing a quick tart-up job (pushing the price up, but leaving us to still need to do proper decorative work).

    It’s also being sold as ‘with a garage’ the only problem being the garage currently backs out onto a lane that’s completely overgrown, the door to it is plated over with a big welded sheet of metal and it’s got an asbestos roof. A few small details to fix there, but otherwise it’s quite interesting.

    So, we’ll see. We then had a very nice curry from a very busy curry house with N & K. After sleeping in the hottest hotel known to man, woman or child, we headed with Nikki and Kids down to the Organic Food festival. This was excellent. Lots of yummy food, lots of interesting stalls, we witnessed an explanation of sheep shearing which surprisingly kept the kids entertained and managed to teach those non-farm-girl adults of our group a thing or two.

    Unfortunately, we didn’t get to make it to Doors Open day, which I’ve still not managed to get to (seriously, I’ve never made it. Shift work != social life). But instead piled back into the car and headed down to see my mum. She’s feeling a lot better than she has been, and on Sunday I got to cuddle a chicken.

    That’s not some strange euphemism, my mum keeps chickens and because we put them out to have a bit more space they needed their wings clipped (she’d been keeping them in a chicken-arena made from an old cat run). We’d never done this before – but a local chap came and showed us how it’s done, and wings clipped*, new fence erected (not of the greatest quality, but it’s just to stop them roaming into the upper bit of the garden) and they were let loose. They immediately disproved my theory that the larger area would reduce the damage they did by attempting to dig up one of the plants. Not intentionally mind, I think there were just bugs they wanted in the soil around it… Then, in a job involving vast amounts of chicken shite we moved their coop down to the new area. Despite the poo, the scratching and the hastle it’s made me more keen to keep chikens because, frankly, they’re very cute. When you pick one up and give it a cuddle and it settles into your arms going ‘coo-coo’ it’s quite sweet.

    Then we headed home and found that contrary to our hopes there have been no viewings on the house this weekend. We’re contemplating dropping the price and a few other little changes :(

    Anyway, I should get on.

    * Unfortunately, during this process a bird became a wee bit agitated, and left my mum’s grasp. In doing so it scratched Kathryn’s face with the newly clipped feathers :(

  • News from the coalface

    So, stuff and things continue apace. We’ve had more viewings (‘the lounge is too small’ – we’re wondering if we made a mistake taking the second chair out of the lounge, and whether we should bring it back – but we’ll leave it until we get the feedback from yesterday’s viewing and then ask our estate agent).

    I finally made the journey to collect Rebecca yesterday. She’s been being worked on, continuously, since August 2009 when the gearbox expired – and after a year of multiple disasters and discoveries of horrific faults (which I still can’t go into because of an ongoing court case) she was finally ‘ready’ for collection yesterday. She fought and fought to stay there – destroying a brand new heated windscreen that was being refitted (because of a faulty new windscreen seal) on Tuesday. And when I hit the motorway to come home she thought she’d toy with fuel starvation, but once she was out playing on the roads – she decided she quite liked it.


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  • Lordy lordy, I am but tired.

    So, last night was one of those rare nights where I actually did my job. By which I mean, I looked after truly sick people who needed to be in hospital, and who I gave to the best of my abilities adequate care. I looked after someone who would have died in the immediate future* without our intervention. I did my job and y’know what, it felt damn good.

    However, after a solid night of sickies, I am now shattered. My head’s faintly swimmy, and my mind is floating around in that absent way in which my mind floats about. I had faint plans for today, but it’s taken me nearly 2 hours to work up to eating breakfast (“the kitchen is far away”, “the house is cold”, “if I get up I should get a jumper”). Eventually breakfast was actually spurred by the plasma TV capacitor decision. The Plasma TV has, as was mentioned yesterday, some dubious looking capacitors. Two of them, in fact, on the Y-Sus board. However, when I was taking it to bits I recalled that the X-Sus board had, I thought, 3 very similar looking and similarly bulgy capacitors. I did not, however, extract the X-Sus board because; well; frankly because I didn’t worry too much about replacing them. I know the need replacing, but… well.

    Only when I was poking the internizzle with my internizzle-poking-stick, attempting to locate a 330µF, 250V, 105°C capacitor (as opposed to the many 85°C ones which I did find, and which were much cheaper) did I reach this realisation. I could get a pack of 5 of the 330µF, 250V, 105°C ones from ebay for 8 of your Earth quid. Now while these are probably of a similarly explodey nature to the ones already in our high quality plasma screen, they cost much less than the RS Components £18 plus £5 shipping plus VAT option. Especially when it’s quite likely that the FMSD102A module (whatever it does) is dead too. I don’t really want to spend too much fixing it, especially as my electronics skill level is kind of down here (waves hand near floor) and this sort of tech is somewhere up there (indicates non-planet-Pluto).

    Anyhow; so I was contemplating this dilemma, and considering the fact that I really should have written down what the sickly caps on the X-Sus board were, when I realised that I really (a) should have some breakfast and (b) if I looked inside the TV I might be able to see the relevant board and by extension, the relevant components.

    In the end I had to fetch a torch (but that’s still easier than lifting the ginormovision off it’s hooks, laying it on the carprpet and removing the 875 screws that hold the back panel on, and then taking the board out. After some peering at it I came to the conclusion that it is, in fact, sporting 3 of the ‘explododome’ capacitors, which will be excilled to the recycling when the new ones arrive… from Hong Kong.

    That, however, has filled the happy time between me logging on to my course and finding that it said ‘Not Yet Available’ to now, when it’s cheerfully lists the course info. Which I’m sure is better when the words aren’t all dancing with each other (mostly rhumbas) and interchanging letters in a disconcertingly swinging-party way…

    * By which I mean without our intervention in another 10-15 minutes this person’s heart would no longer have been able to beat. As it is, this person was chatting away when we left. That’s *PRETTY DAMN SPIFFY*.

  • The Dead(?) Y-Sus Board

    So, I’ve pulled the Y-Sus board from the Vision PTS-4241 Plasma TV – this is the presumed faulty board (the symptoms are apparently quite common: Sudden loss of vision with functional sound).

    Apart from the FMSD102A module (which may, or may not, be dead – and for which I’ve found a variety of companies in China who’ll ship me 10, 20, 80 or more, and for whom a minimum order of $250 seems not uncommon. I’m hoping to find a source for *one*) there are some capacitors on the board that look highly suspicious (at least to me – for whom a vision of bulging capacitors is a vision of death) – and there’s a few of the same brand on other boards that look similarly unhealthy. So I’m thinking they need to be switched out.

    It certainly looks like the FMSD102A has got quite warm at some point, although how to test it I’ve no idea. Also, the report I’ve read suggested that four of the surface mount resistors tend to go ‘phut’ at the same time – and they *look* okay. I’ve not attempted any kind of measurement of resistance because they’re teeny tiny surface mount gidgets and my voltmeter is, well, vague at the best of times.

    I’m thinking I might been needing the expertise of John for them, but it all hinges on getting this FMSD102A module. So here’s hoping, otherwise I guess I’ll try and get a replacement board, but then things get pricey, and I’ve no idea if the thing works…

    Anyway these are the offending caps:

    Vision Plasma Screen's Fault Y-Sus board

    Vision Plasma Screen's Fault Y-Sus board

  • Test Spam

    So, I’ve been aware that my LJ Crossposter has been double spacing all the paragraphs for no apparent reason. I’ve tried to find a reason for this and can’t, so this is a test of the new cross poster.

    I apologise for spamming your blogs :)

  • On the issue of tea

    So, I can’t recall how it started. It seemed like a good idea at the time; I think it was just a pack of Twinings loose leaf tea – possibly Earl Grey – and the realisation that a nicely brewed cup of good quality leaf tea tasted much better than the stuff we got in bags.

    It was prettier too – the little leaves all sat there in the tin, rather than the unexciting paper bags filled with what my dad used to describe as floor sweepings. Not that my palette is that attuned, I’m sure. You could probably serve me a well prepared cup of good quality bag tea and I’d probably not notice; but I *think* I can tell the difference and I suspect that’s what counts.

    Anyhow, we drifted along for some time supping the Twinings tea, and then it had to happen. We tried something better. We tried little sample packs from Nothing But Tea, we visited Attic in Bristol and Dammann in Paris. And we were taken, hooked, sold. However you want to describe it.

    Good tea is all you’ll find in our house (A box of ‘organic tea’ in bags lurks for when we have builders). As with the coffee (I’m sadly missing my Dancing Goat Blend (from Batdorf and Bronson, in Olympia)) you reach this unfortunate point where drinking instant coffee / cheap bag tea is just, well, it’s not that nice. And you want something ‘better’. And then you’re buggered, because you’ve developed a tea habit* and you find yourself browsing and going “Mmm, spicy and fruity liquor, that sounds nice” and ordering more tea, even though you’re broke.

    On the plus side, at least you have a decent cuppa :)

    * Which goes with my coffee habit; thanks to Kara :-P

  • More contemplation

    The problem with not knowing what your plan is, and having vague notions about what your plan could be is that it leads (at least in my case) to vast amounts of pondering, introspection, and circular thought processes which lead no where in particular – and take you on a mystical journey where you wonder if you should have done something different.

    We, at the moment, have a few minor little jobs which are non-critical, but would make the house look ‘better’ – which we’re poking at occasionally. Because I’ve been ill (and would’ve been at work) this weekend we’ve not done much – and bloody hell does it feel good to have a weekend. A weekend where we’re not working, where we get to sit/snuggle/chat/read the paper/etc. A weekend which is restful. I can’t remember the last time we had one of them.

    Ignoring that, my brain continues to contemplate the house we saw, and might make an offer on, although we’re off to see some other houses next week. I need to try and get a viewing on Friday and persuade a builder to give up 20 minutes of his time to quote for us, and give his opinion on a couple of options for the layout upstairs of the property.

    But really, that’s all we can do. Sit and wait. I should, also, look at whether we can fix the TV. Probably pull the suspect board and see if I can find out which component(s) on it have gone, and how much to replace them (or the board) – because if we can make it work we won’t have to move the old CRT. Which’d be nice :)