Mostly lemon based

Blog

  • There have been complaints

    Apparently, I’ve been keeping quiet about some news in my life, which I have, because I wasn’t sure where it was going. Or whether it was going anywhere. It seemed good, but my anti-chicken-counting was making me careful.

    That and the faint insanity which surrounds it. See, I talked to this girl, a few weeks ago in an event that was phenominally random; the sheer amount of random sticks in my head, as do the infiniately small probability of me and my random clicking ending up with us in conversation.

    Anyway, it seems that she liked me, and I liked her, and thus a few weeks ago I headed to London, as did she, and we spent a really rather nice evening discovering that we were quite good at talking in person, and apparently very bad at reading the other person’s body language.

    And eventually we came to Saturday, where it finally became apparent that this interesting, beautiful, intelligent, fun, articulate girl likes me. Something which makes me smile.

    So, yes; in summary, I met a girl and she rocks my little world…

  • It’s not a fleet, it’s more a small collection.

    So, today I ended up getting the Viva. It’s tatty, but looks sound and mechanically seems to be okay. The journey back was nearly trouble free – we had a little electrical issue – the rotor arm looks sorely in need of replacement but a good clean seems to have temporarily solved the issue.

    Sadly that wasn’t the *only* issue. No, I got to tesco after a 120 mile jaunt and nipped round doing my shopping. Probably took me less than 20 minutes. Came back out and Brick (as I’ve decided he (I think) is called) wouldn’t start. Fiddling with the rotor arm didn’t help. There just seemed to be no desire at all to even try.

    Lots of turning – enough that the oil pressure light’d go out. But no, not a hope. And just as I was about to declare failure and ring the AA – it started. Smooth as butter and no churning of the starter – it just *started*. Thinking that it was maybe a technique issue, I headed off to Halfords (It needs two new wiperblades; sadly I didn’t realise the cheeky bastards sell them as singles in *big* boxes; so I only bought one. Still, being able to see out of half the windscreen is still a big improvement). And lo, she’d not start. Starts fine when cold. Not too bad when hot, but warm? Warm is a complete dog.

    Still, hopefully we’ll get it all sussed.

    Anyway, here’s Brick, after a long journey home:

    1971 Viva

    Incidentally, if anyone has a spare car radio kicking around, and some speakers, that’d be quite handy.

  • Money and transport stressing me

    So, today’s journey in Rebecca was ‘somewhat vibey’. The engine clearly isn’t long for this earth. I dunno *why* it’s not long for this earth, not having the ability to see through metal, but it isn’t. It is definately worse now than it was a month ago, so much so that at times holding the steering wheel is uncomfortable, and resting my left foot on the floor near the clutch is uncomfortable too – just from the not-violent-but-persistent vibration of the various parts of my car.

    So, a new car is in order, at least for the short term. The distressing thing about this is it steals money from the repair of Rebecca. Even more distressing is that it steals money I don’t actually have. I considered, for a few minutes the potential of selling Cherry, but then remembered I’ve just applied for 2 jobs in London, and Cherry may infact be a much more useful vehicle than the one I’m considering.

    I’ve debated this long and hard, and long enough that Rebecca’s got noticably worse, and I’ve come to the following conclusions:

    • The vehicle must have a long MOT
    • It’s either got to be reasonable mileage-wise or simple enough that I can fix it.
    • Ideally, it should be rear wheel drive if it’s something I’m going to have to fix.
    • If it’s pay-for-tax, then it needs to be cheap tax band or taxed for most of a year.
    • Reasonably reliable (or likely to be)
    • Cheap to insure

    So, I’ve looked at a Lada, and found that it’s not MOTd, and I’ve stared at lots of ads which have invariably been very high mileage, at that age where expensive repairs start to be common. I had a bid in on a Vauxhall Viva too, but didn’t meet it’s reserve price.

    Assuming bloke rings me, then I may go and look at said Viva tomorrow, and accept that I’m paying a bit more than it’s worth for the sake of having a car *now* which I can fix, which is disgustingly simple and which has had quite a few new bits, oh and which is cheap to insure. I’m trying to resign myself to this. It’s not going well.

    On the plus side, it should be fine. And having looked at the crap that’s available in my pricerange, most of them come with very-short tax and MOT, or most commonly no tax at all. So I think the ‘classic’ is the way to go.

    *sighs*

    If the bike was 100% I’d probably torment myself with just riding to and from work, but as long as that base-gasket is leaking and I don’t know why then I’m just not ready to do that. Oh, and risking my life daily on the M25 isn’t wildly good fun.

    Anyway, enough whining. On the plus side I’ve put in 2 job applications for 2 A&E departments. So let’s hope we get some interviews and something *good* out of that.

  • Sometimes I think I should just give my first-born to Microsoft

    I hate Microsoft, many people know that, and as part of that I decline to take part in their product activation. I’ll hunt and seek and find ways around activating anything. Same with all my products, actually. I don’t see why I should be hastled.

    And I don’t see why they should get any information about my PC. It’s *my* PC and it’s not like their products are cheap. So. Yeah. Unfortunately the last patch I applied to my XP entertainment box… well… yeah. It confused matters. The machine is now schizophrenic, thinking on the one hand that it’s activated, and on the other that it’s not.
    The upshot of all of this is that it’s dead. I need to reinstall Windows. Bah. And I’ve no-one to blame but myself. What’s that you say? “But Kate you must love reinstalling windows, you do it so often…”. Uh. No.

    So, let’s skip on that and go onto other news. It appears the company I asked to quote for rebuilding my engine were ‘confused’. They wanted to return it to me in bits for me to reassemble. *sighs*. I noticed that they didn’t seem to actually *read* the e-mail I’d sent them – the whole bit about ‘normally I’d do this myself, but I don’t have the time at the moment’ seems to have passed them by. *sighs*. I fear the returned quote with assembly cost. But let’s find out.

    The installing thing is kinda getting to me, but the rest of the universe can go hang, because frankly nothing’s going to erase my general good mood. Not tiredness, not the fact my lemon tree looks exceedingly unwell, not the fact that my builder’s not rung, and not the fact that I can’t now watch what I wanted to watch on telly, because the Ent.PC is dead.

    I shall simply relax, listen to CIUT and consider reading about antibiotics some more.

  • Ahh. All becomes clear

    Whilst I’m sure you’re not interested it didn’t actually take that long to figure out where things went ‘wrong’ this month. I paid the Building Regs fees out of ‘current’ not ‘savings’. Which is fine, and actually I’ve only transferred enough to cover me for next week out of ‘savings’. However, it’s explained the unexplained lack of 300 quid from my account.

    Mrr.

    What isn’t ‘quite’ so good is the realisation that I’m now down to less than I thought in my savings account (presuamably why I decided to try and squeeze through the month on current, not savings, even when having to spend lots on car’s MOT, insurance, etc, etc, etc). I am looking forward to the point when the house is more sorted, because then I might get some sort of realistic feel for how much money I’ve got coming in and out. It’s really hard to keep a track of it when I pay for some building stuff out of ‘current’ and some from ‘savings’ and sometimes I don’t transfer all the money – because if I can do stuff out of my income I’d prefer to do that than taking it out of my savings (obviously).

    Anyway. So yes, it doesn’t *help*, but at least I now know where the money went, and I don’t feel guilty. I was worrying that I’d done something dumb, like bought a herd of elephants, or a small island somewhere, something like that, in my sleep. But no, it appears that my outgoings are all justifyable.

    In other news, my Homehub has still not arrived. I would be suprised but frankly, BT’s shonky customer service is now becoming a legend in my own home. They cut me off after making me wait on hold for ages today. So now I’m using their complaints line. I remain awfully close to cancelling my account and getting a phone from someone…anyone else. It is, however, the irritation of having to change my number(s), etc, which is the bigger stopping point. That and the hastle. Although the hastle of my broken hub is starting to reach the level where it’s more hastle to *stay* with BT than to change. Which is bad for BT.

  • Oops

    Somehow, this month I have fubar’d my finanaces. All the bills have been paid, fortunately, but I shan’t be buying any more food (well, I might get myself a bag-salad) until after I get paid next week.

    I’m not even entirely sure where the money’s gone, so I shall be spending a tedious few hours later staring at the Mac and my online account. I suspect though, that I have been a dumbass. I only realised this yesterday when I went out with my freinds to get takeaway and had to use the credit card. The Debit card still – uh – well, it’s got overdraft on it, but that’s it.

    I do wish I’d realised this *before* I spent money on batteries, but I didn’t and already had, so that’s kinda too late. On the plus side I should have some new batteries coming.

  • Message begins:

    I had a really, truly, fantastic day yesterday. I’ve got a silly grin plastered all over my face and am terribly excited and nervous. I hope you all have a good day :-)

    : Message ends

  • The crackling is the static in my life

    Some days you just think ‘oh for goodness sake’, don’t you? I got up this morning, struggled through my morning routine a bit quicker’n normal so as I could pull on my bike gear. Hopped on Cherry and headed out, filled her up with petrol and got to work. Work, fine (Foot still hurting).

    Headed home, and y’know what? Everything was fine…but you know how this story ends. Last set of lights before my house, I filter round the cars, shoot through the lights as they change to green and as I’m riding, I think ‘hrm, the back end is getting awfully squirrelly, I wonder if I’ve hit some oil’. Over the next couple of seconds it gets worse, so I pull over and look round and lo, I have a puncture. Glass? Nail? Who knows, it’s nearly flat. Tubed tyres do not maintain their state well when they have a hole. I did *try* and gently ride on, but it was somewhat like having a sumo wrestler leaping about on the pillion seat as I attempted to make forward progress.

    Admitting all forms of defeat I pushed my sad little cherry red bike back to the house. It was not fun. My bike remains ‘heavy’ – especially with a flat. However, it was good that I rode the bike to work. Why?

    Well, obviously the flat tyre puts the bike out of action until at least the next early, so I looked at the ‘new noise’ situation on the moglet.

    The starter motor, the one that had inconveniently cracked the cast metalwork? Well it’d managed to work loose, so it was more sort of decoratively hanging than actually attached. I’m shocked that it worked, and shocked that it didn’t fall off. Very lucky is what I am.

    I’m a bit nervy now though, the moglet is obviously not a happy creature if she’s shaking ancilleries loose, and the bike is out of action for another couple of days. I may, if I’m feeling enthusiastic and it’s dry, attempt to get the wheel off tomorrow, then I can run it to a tyre place. I am however in another ‘argh’ type situation – the tyre’s not worn out – it’s probably got a good few hundred miles in it… ‘cept… well, if I’m paying for someone to remove the tyre and put a new inner tube in… well, aren’t we into the arena of ‘might as well replace the nearly worn out tyre’. Hrm. I guess I’ll see – if they’ve got something nice and mid-range in stock then it’s probably replacement time, otherwise we’ll go with the tube.

    My life is just too exciting for you all I expect…

  • The problem with lates

    Late shifts are not quite so hard, in that you don’t have to wash all the patients. They tend to go slower, as a rule, and there’s a bit of an opportunity to get caught up with all sorts of bits and pieces – you can usually get a chance to look at the notes (so long as you’re not short staffed). Apart from the weird way they tend to run – not much to do (catchy up things) and then suddenly a rush on at the end (I must remember to write notes on the fly, rather than all at the end, I have a terrible habit of doing that). No, the problem is a different one.

    It’s that at home, before a late, you just can’t get that much done. I mean, I have been known to work my tail off in the morning when I’ve been really in a hurry – but basically if you have a task that needs to be done that involves, say, going to the post office – well that means that your whole morning has to be shifted to take account of it (especially ‘cos I can’t walk there at the moment – my foot is still killing me for reasons which have yet to be explained). So, all I’ve done this morning is shower, a little teensy bit of finding (managed to find my BNF; I’d link so people who are not medical can see what a BNF is, but my BTHomeHub’s lost it’s DNS again. And it’s wireless is playing up. (I am still waiting for the new one to arrive. If it’s not appeared by thursday I’ll be shouting at BT, because this is ridiculous). Anyway, a BNF is the National Drugs Formulary – it lists all the drugs we prescribe in the UK, what they do, what their side effects and contraindications are, and because I’m way out of practice on drug rounds I’ll be reading bits and bobs over the next few days to get myself back up to speed for the drug round assessment. Sadly my BNF is hideously out of date and I’m too cheap to buy a new one. Wards each have their own, but it should do for groups of drugs, just some new ones won’t be in there), and I’ve rung my builder to see if I can get a quote – only he’s not about, so I’ve left a message, oh, and some laundry (this is a hideous run-on-paragraph/sentance, but I can’t be bothered to fix it having written it).

    Yeah, so, I feel like my morning’s mostly consisted of not doing much. I sometimes wonder if my definition of ‘not much’ is different to other people’s. I’ve been debating losing a few more books, actually. And one day this week I need to get sorted and get the books that are going off to charity. I’m going to stick a few on bookcrossing which could be interesting. I just need to decide where to leave them, and which ones to give away.

    I’m thinking though,I’m going up to Norwich in 2 weeks time and there’ll be some opportunities either on the way up, or on the way back to leave a few books lurking. And maybe I can drop one off (or get my mum to do so) when she’s flying out on her plane. Let’s get these books out and off and running.

    Anyway. I should make food so as I have something to take with me to work, and then get changed and head off. Hopefully my foot won’t hurt too much today, but I seriously can’t afford any more time off sick. I don’t even know *why* it’s hurting for so long, it normally disappears after an hour or two. Meh.

  • Another quick house update

    Yeah, no pics today… I finally made some more progress on the house; much of today was spent doing the hunt for where I hid things before the party. Tools and so on are all lurking randomly around the house – and finding them again has taken a while, and suprisingly I’ve not ended up ranting about it.

    Mostly I think because the early part of the afternoon was spent with the sparkly hazy stars around my vision from serious pain from my left foot. I’ve done whatever I’ve done to it before, and normally it goes away again just as quickly as it appeared. But the whole day today has been a bit sore – it just started hurting yesterday and I probably should have rested it a bit more – but, uh, didn’t.

    Anyway, the stairs are now painted – top to bottom, I’m quite pleased really. It mostly needs another coat (what with this being the first colour coat), which I’m not hugely looking forward to doing – mostly because it took quite a long time and I was really quite tired after doing it. On the plus side it looks like the colour combination works well, and the lamp is gorgeous up on the wall. For once the Lath/plaster worked well for me – because I didn’t have to try and attach the lamp to plasterboard; I just went for screwing it into the lath. Which I’m sure is dubious, but I suspect works better’n trying to use rawl-plugs on lath/plaster.
    I also fed the wire up into the loft – I need to get some neat sort of wire clips to hold it to the wall, and a junction box to go in the roofspace, and some lighting-circuit-rated-cable.

    Incidentally, my foot still hurts.

    Yeah, there was a brief moment of panic – while I was trying to work out where the internal bizzaroid wall went, and thinking that I may have put my wiring through into the neighbour’s roofspace, but it just proved my 3D thinking was lacking. So anyway, the light’s there and ready for the picture…
    …the picture that’s going to go on that end wall – It’s an abandoned places print and I think it’ll look just gorgeous there. I don’t want to over do it on artwork on the stairs, but there’s a few prints I want to put up in there. We’ll see. I also want to put up the ones in the lounge…

    So, in other exciting news I’ve been trying to catch up on paperwork, oh and my Dyson’s stopped sucking. Or started sucking. Depending on how you’re using the term. At any rate, I need to find my torx-drivers, which I assume are at my mum’s so I can get the bloody thing apart and find out why it’s no longer sucking up dirt. It’d not be quite such a problem, but I’ve still not found hoover bags for the Goblin, and I’m not sure how long the tape that’s holding that hoover bag together is going to last ;-/

    One day I’ll stop bodging things…. but not today, eh.