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Has anyone else been watching Alys Fowler’s The Edible Garden? Well, we have, and we’ve been inspired. Our vegetables have, so far, been confined to the corners of the garden, almost literally. The raised ‘veg’ bed by the house (in what used to be a coal bunker) and the fairly disastrous veg bed down the other end of the garden.

I’m hoping that the far bed will be better this year since we’ve ripped out the Swiss Chard which seemed to be a haven for black-fly, and in it we’ve currently got onions and garlic (which are growing!*) in there. There will be some potatoes, if they ever get around to sprouting, and my mum’s going to throw some into her allotment** (which will be more or less untended for the rest of the year, but if they survive we’ll nab them). And we, yesterday, did something daring even by our puny gardening standards.

Most of what we’ve planted in terms of beans and carrots are resiliant F1 hybrids, things that any idiot should, hopefully be able to grow. Last year we got a pretty good haul of carrots, beans and tomatoes (the tomatoes, to be fair, came from a plant we planted, not a seed). This year, in addition to our F1 (grow anywhere) hybrids we’ve gone out and spent 16 quid on a selection of mixed heirloom and interesting seeds. Our front windowsills (the house faces North/South, so the front ones are the only ones that actually get sun), shall be home to a selection of seeds which we’ll hopefully be potting, growing, and then planting out.

We’ve got sweetcorn, old fashioned (non-orange) carrots (sadly not purple ones, which are apparently one of the original carrot colours, white and purple, but we could only find white), parsnips, broccoli and something that’s a bit like broccoli but not, some fennel, some (*shudder*) cucumber (Kathryn loves Cucumber, but I hate it, and so we never get it because she doesn’t feel she’s likely to eat an entire cucumber from the store before it goes soggy; we’ve therefore bought a pickleable one (because i love gherkins, and a small variety)) – there’s probably loads more that I’m forgetting, but I’m looking forward with much excitement to our own edible garden. :)

Nyum.

* I may have mentioned before, but when we were clearing out the shed we found that last years unplanted onions had started to sprout – so we planted some new ones from this year *and* last years pre-sprouting ones, which are looking very good at the moment.
** Unless the new people moving in want the allotment, apparently.

You know how sometimes you just need it out of your system? Well, that’s it. Out of my system. I’ve learned from the experience, I shall take that forward, and I shall send Mr [git] a cheque, retrieve my car, and the world will continue to spin.

On the plus side it’s been my Birthday today, and while the beginning of the day was stress and the middle sucked, the evening has been pleasant. I’ve chatted to friends, I’ve listened to my new CD (Plastiscines, LP1 – it’s in FRENCH! How cool?); I got my Wintermitts CDs (I thought I’d only ordered/paid for one, but they sent two? They rock. And some of their stuff is in French TOO!). yesterday to listen to. And today I got *PRESENTS*!

Birthdays rock; Kathryn, her mom and my mum have all been incredibly generous. I got some awesome ‘merkian Coffee (Dancing Goats Blend, a coffee that’s fast become my favourite) and have just been spending tokens on Amazon (which reminds me I need to update my Things I want page, because several things are no longer ‘things I want’, but instead ‘things I’ve got’). Kathryn bought me (something which I don’t know about yet and) a fabulous RED wall clock, in 50s stylee, which I was fawning over in a shop in Bath. It’s part of my ‘red kitchen’ desire. I have no idea why, but I saw a Red Kitchen once and I just want one. Really a lot.

We need to pop it up on the wall though.

I also got some new frocks, which are made of some delicious fabric, and I’ll be off to try them on soon (yes, folks, it’s true. I really am a girl).

But best of all, I got to be with Kathryn who is an awesome, fantastic, beautiful, wonderful person.

Sorry, but that’s it. I’ve had it.

I tried to be nice and that got me shot today.

Today, for the unaware was my moment in court, the hearing in which I defended myself against [redacted], who claimed (and won) that it was okay for them to work on my car on the assumption that I’d granted permission, and that it was okay to make decisions about how to spend my money without getting my approval because they couldn’t get in contact with me.

The court chose to believe that they had tried to ring me (despite describing an answerphone I didn’t have), despite e-mailing an address that’s not mine (and doesn’t exist) when he had the correct address, and not to take any notice of the fact that in my opinion I didn’t approve the work (he has no evidence that I did), and that I did all the running for contacting him prior to the loss of communication…

But what got me shot? Well, when we reestablished contact I tried to find a route that got him paid (despite the fact that I wasn’t happy with where things were standing) and tried to get me the car back working. A route he himself suggested – which is when it became apparent he’d never even looked at the motor on the flooded vehicle – and when I decided to put a stop to ideas of him continuing his unauthorised restoration. That, apparently, is the open door which means that despite the fact he commenced work without examining the entire vehicle and never got authorisation from me for his approach to the repairs (it’s actually something he acknowledged in his e-mail and that the judge mentioned) – I get to pay for his work.

But – for those of you considering using [redacted] bear in mind he informed the court that he cannot test a motor outside the vehicle without complete control circuits. While it may be true that he can’t, other people are quite capable of doing so. Unfortunately, the court does not know about EVs.

Obviously this is just my experience (although every single person I’ve spoken to about [git] said “uh, he’s a git”. Not one nice word have I heard). And this is the ranting of a bitter loser who’s got to spend over £1000 to get a controller that is not worth anything (no guarantee, not even of basic functionality).

So from now on, everything in writing. Even delivering a vehicle for a quote? That’ll be in writing. Want me to do anything? In writing, thanks. And if I’m unhappy, that’s the end of the relationship, in writing. No more nice Kate.

For those of you interested in the details, I have to pay for the controller, and the interest since the invoice was issued, plus court fees. Which all in is about a grand.

Yes, the DAF still graces our drive. In fact, the DAF has got such a flat tyre that the poor little pumpy doojit can’t pump it up, I’ll have to take that wheel to a place with an air-line. The fact is, the DAF seems to like it here. Attempts to remove it are met with disaster or distain, attempts to drive it with sudden and unexpected breakages, and really it delights in tormenting me.

I have replaced nearly all of the damn thing, and yet it mocks me with an ability verging on fanaticism, by breaking somewhere new every time I fix something old.

It has, to be honest sat there immobile for a few weeks, since I swapped it before the tax ran out for the illustrious Volvo. Impressively it continues to start well, run fine, and move without problems. Apart, obviously, from the exhaust having snapped. So I made the decision to sell. Rebecca is due back soon, in her LHD form (so we *have* to go to another country, see?), and that space on the drive is hers. So I’ve commenced the list of jobs to tidy the car up for sale before she…uh, gets sold. We can look forward to an orgy of sanding, filling and painting, cleaning and polishing, and then a depressingly honest e-bay advert which will allow the car to sell for £2.50 and a nice cup of tea.

Still, hopefully I’ve saved a Worthy Classic from the scrapper, and that’s something to be proud of. Perhaps they’ll make it an EV one day and then I’ll really be a proud mum :)

So, it seemed that we were heading for less stress for a bit; I’ve got my courtcase (1) coming up in a couple of weeks, and then there’s only courtcase (2), and Job interview. Also, the CRNBC had written back and said that they would be assessing my nursing education in the next 4-8 weeks… Uuuunfortunately, they have found my nursing education lacking – ironically not in any of the areas I was stressed about (i.e. Paeds / Mental Health / Maternity) but in the area I was unconcerned about – general nursing. Lord knows what is inadequate in that area, the letter doesn’t say, but I can think of several areas of my nurse training that I think were inadequate.

I *know* that stuff, because I learned it myself, or out on the wards, or over time, but they never taught me. I suppose that’s showing up now.

Of course, this is a complete pig. Suddenly I need to arrange flights to BC, an assessment, and potentially somewhere to stay. Whilst we were contemplating it as a holiday, that’d mean leaving it ’til the summer, and that delays our departure even more, and then we’re stuck in this country (which is heading further and further from where I want to be).

But the worst thing about it is being in a place where you can’t make any sort of plan. We don’t know if we’re going to be stuck in the UK for a longish period (if my SEC assessment proves that I need other courses to be completed before I can register as a nurse, then we’re into the how-long-is-a-piece-of-string arena, and also costs which may be unaffordable). If the SEC is fine then it might all just fly though.

Anyhow.

I need to get on with e-mailing the people who do the SEC assessment so we can start developing some sort of plan. The contingency plan of staying in the UK longer is a painful one because it costs £840 ukp, *and* we can’t do anything about it until next year… and obviously that kind of cost means that we have to stay in the UK much longer to make it worth while, which means that the application stuff done so far, and the SEC test will all be wasted, and probably have to be redone. And to top it off, we’d be stuck here. Woot.

So, the labour BPI party managed to force through the Digital Economy Bill. Good for them, I do hope the whole damn lot of them loose their internet connections really quickly. I hope that they get disconnected *first*, let’s see how they like the western world without internet.

Lazy f*cks, half of them didn’t even bother to vote.

I am utterly disappointed in British ‘democracy’. What a pathetic shower of useless gobshites we have in power, in opposition, and pretending to represent us. I can only hope the whole damn lot of them get the results of their shitty legislation the same as the rest of us.

Part of me says ‘vote Lib Dem’, because some of them at least voted against the bill – but there are 63 Lib Dem MPs, and only 16 managed to bother to vote. So the most of me says ‘vote for the green party’ or someone who might actually give-a-shit and might actually turn up to parliament to vote about things.

All I can think is that I’m glad we’re leaving. I hope.

So, I’ve spent the day cleaning and also trying to locate a particular song I need for Podcast number 5. I know, we’re only up to recording number 4. The cleaning has lead to bed-joy. The bed is back in the bedroom, and it’s made, and the light is now in the right place above the bed, and this is all double-plus good.

The music front is less doubleplussy. Whilst I’m really very pleased to be listening to music on my Akai 1721L (or W, who knows? It’s got no identifying marks. I have no idea how I knew it was an Akai). There has been much awesome 60s music played today, and an incredible number of splices have amazed me by surviving the transition not only from one reel to the other, but by going back again.

The gooey gunk they have oozed may make the tape flow a bit uneven and I bet I should be cleaning the tape head after playing some of these crappy old tapes (my dad perhaps should have invested in slightly better quality tapes. Lafayettet Radio Electronics 1800′ acetate tapes may have been cheap, but there was a reason. Mind, they’re not as bad as the CBS New E.R.A. tapes with their 1mil acetate. They appear to be mainly splices. One of the CBS tapes is unplayable, it’s got so many splices in it, and it’s so fragile it just disintegrates if you try).

I still, however, have failed to locate the song I want (I bet it’s on that bloody CBS tape). Gah.

I thought I’d had a flash of genius, but it turned out I was wrong. I’ve so far thought I had this song in 3 places. The one place I absolutely know it is, is on a tape which I think I gave in and threw away after it got chewed about 8 times*. And now I’m thinking I might go eat dinner instead, and start work recording Ep 4.

* It was a tape of a vinyl album called “That’ll be the day” and I used to play it in the car a lot. It was a BASF posh mechanism tape, and one day something happened to it and it started to get very stiff. Having got chewed several times, I started to debate putting it

So, I got some stuff relating to the EV courtcase today. Self-foot-shooting appears, from my perspective, to have occurred. We’ll have to wait until the day to find out if my argument is more persuasive than his, but I’m feeling better about it.

I’ve also mailed the stuff for the other court case (seriously, two court cases going on at once? how is that soothing?) – hopefully we’ll get a date back for that soon.

And now I’m off to attempt to finish cleaning the bedroom, hopefully a bit more hoovering and wiping of surfaces, and a floor moppage experience, and we can get the bed back in there (*bed-joy* *). I’m also going to spend a day reliving my youth with reel-to-reel tape, because I know on one of my dad’s tapes there’s a song I need for the next dead bug jumping (a new episode of which came out today!).

* No, not like that you dirty minded people.