With the best will in the world, our garden isn't as big as I'd like it to be, and the old-fashioned, 1930s style 'open drain into which water from the kitchen runs' system does mean that while relaxing in the garden is delightful, the spot that's shady and thus my favourite (right by the house) is slightly marred by the occasional spray of running water draining away.

To be fair, it's only 'cos the washing machine is running.

It is, however, very very pretty out here.

There're lots of flowers, there're lots of butterflies, the sun's shining enough that it's warm, but the house provides much needed shade.

At any rate, I've decided on a programme of stress reduction. This is largely centred around such exciting things as getting the Regolith account closed (close current account, pay-the-damn-money on a requirement that as soon as it's done the account is closed. Refuse to pay if they won't close the account). Even just thinking about Regolith makes my stomach feel like it's got snakes in it, which I don't really need today because my stomach's been feeling a little snake filled all day. Not nearly as bad as yesterday, but certainly not right.

Anyhow, on better topics, we got another clematis for the garden; the 'mile a minute' clematis having started to do it's mile-a-minuting, a little further along the fence some more clematis, I felt, would not go amiss. So we've got some Clematis Macropetala (or Wessleton), we've also got some Erygium Planum (no idea what the common name for that is, but it looks kind of alien, and purple, it's awesome); and a big pot and some Jasmine to grow around by the front door. We've also got some decorative grasses to grow in the front of the house, in our little garden there - although it's going to spend most of it's time hidden by cars, it needs something other than the Iris and the Rose. The buddleia will be going in there, I think, when it stops flowering (it can't stay growing between the wall and the concrete, that's not a good place for it) - but at the moment the front of the house is permanently surrounded by butterflies and that's pretty darn spiffy.

In other stress reduction news I realised today that the car's (Vixy) MOT doesn't run out for *ages*, so I've only got to get one DAF sorted for it's MOT. Vixy's ropey welding doesn't have to be dealt with in quite such a hurry. Which has made me relax a bit. I've finally forked out for a grotty little HVLP spray kit - so I can hopefully get a coat of paint on the bits of Jejy that need it, and on the new door for Vixy. If things actually stay working well for a while I may even put some filler on the dents in the bodywork and spray that (if I have any spray paint left after doing bits of Jejy (Bonnet, front panel, leading edges of engine bay, front wings) and most importantly Vixy's new door. That said, having bought the HVLP compressor then getting a bit more paint isn't that expensive, and will make both cars much more saleable when it comes time to go.

What I'd really like (in addition to my temperature not wandering all over the place like some kind of insane goldfish - I've taken some paracetamol* now, so that should hopefully make things a little less labile in the temperature department) is to have the motorbike together and running, because today is just the right kind of weather for wasting fossil fuels in a futile jaunt to the middle of no-where and back.

Yes, obviously, had I the money to build an electric MZ based motorcycle, I would. But I don't, and I can't, so...that's really an end to it.

Anyhow, I'm going to get back to relaxing and reading and enjoying the garden for a bit :)



* AKA acetaminophen or 'tylenol', for those who like US brandnames.

So, the butterfly bush has been living up to it's name - I took these yesterday before the nausea kicked in. It's the pretty:



The 'set' starts here (it's appended to the July '09 garden set) - lots of playing with Macro and photographing butterflies :)

There's good news and bad stuff.

Good news: The DAF is running much better, and appears to be a very simple fix.
Good news2: We went to the garden centre and have more plants :)

Bad news: I'm sick; again. Temp 38.8, nauseous and generally achey.

So, tomorrow the rental goes back, which means I need to fix Vixy, properly. This is potentially traumatic because I am, quite frankly, exhausted. Today's shift was laughable in the number of dross patients (a bloke who really, truly had man flu. I rarely want to slap patients, but frankly he needed a slap*). People who really had no place in a hospital cluttering up the beds and making me feel like...well... it stretched my patience a little.

I've been working on being 'nicer', I'm not quite sure what I mean by that, I've never thought of myself as being a not-nice nurse, but I've been trying to be more touchy-feely than I used to be; I am, however, hampered by the fact that I'm extraordinarily sarcastic.

One of the agency nurses said I'd delivered a foundation course in sarcasm today :-)

Still, I've been getting on well with the (nicer) patients, and perhaps saving my annoyance for those who don't deserve the extra-nice Kate.

In other news, I finally obtained a cable which meant I could plug in my 300 series phone to the internet boxen. This was cool, in-so-far as it went 'Riiiiiiing' (because it does a US style ring) - unfortunately, picking it up killed the phone stone-dead. I'm assuming that while it can run phones with a REN value up to 5 - the 1950s circuitry requires a tad more power than the standard modern phones use, and therefore the little boxen can't power the amplifier. A terribly sad situation.

I've got a 200 Series phone, too. With an A/B coinbox. I want to get that working in Canada too,

Essentially, I think I need to build a separate power supply to power the phone which is a bit of a bugger, really. And may need me to get my head around some electronics I've not really been thinking about for a long time.

* I'm thinking of developing a clinical parthian shot - I suspect it's clinical efficacy when correctly administered to appropriate patients would be remarkable.

We're going to the fringe festival this year. This does, unfortunately, entail driving from Bristol (where some friends are getting hitched) to Edinburgh. Anyone got some crossable fingers?

So, I'm being a slug. I'm really bad about my university application, I think I've not done anything like that for so long that it's taking me quite a while to get around to it. Which is a bit of a pig. Or more accurately, it's taking me a long time to get into it. I'd forgotten how hard I find making myself sound good on an application.

And making myself sound like a desirable candidate when my degree results don't really tally with that. But really, my dad died and UWE told me that was insufficient reason to allow me to resubmit (2) essays without a 40% cap, which kinda screwed my final year.

One of them was scored at 85%, my rewrite, the highest in the year. Bitter? Me? With my 2:2? No, not at all. :-/

Anyhow, so I'm trying to get my brain fired up but I am so tired. I've had 4 lates in 5 days, and am going for my 5th late today (on the 6th day of a 7 day stretch of shifts). Yesterday I was seriously yawning and wandering around the place like some kind of lost fish - that was until we had a trauma patient, a ?MI (collapsed outside the hospital, literally, some other staff who were free ran out with a trolley to retrieve the poor person), septic/seizure/decreased conciousness level person, another septic person and someone who's heart had opted to do an interesting rhythm, concurrent with them having a sudden and unexpected lie-down.

Since these all arrived within around an hour myself and the other resus nurse ended up nicking 2 other members of staff, because physically we could not actually get between the patients quick enough. The red-phone kept ringing and ringing and I started doing the laugh of the 'no, seriously, you've got to be joking' person.

It was still chaos when we left, but I was exhausted. And I'm feeling it this morning. Especially after a night of very unpleasant dreams. People kept dying in my dreams, I'm not sure whether to class them strictly as nightmares, but they were certainly very, very unpleasant and difficult to escape from. I curled myself around Kathryn's sleeping figure and managed, eventually, to shake them off and sleep - but it wasn't a restful night.

Yesterday was spent in conference with JLH - and we've got a plan of work - Rebecca's hopefully going up there next week. And she'll come back left hand drive, with rebuilt front and rear suspension, an all replaced transmission, a tidied engine bay...

...and something done about getting a locking door on the new driver's side. Which should be 'interesting'.

I need to dink with the vacuum pipes on Jejy, because someone pointed out that her attrocious pick-up might be related to an absence of Vacuum. I shall poke at them. I'm hoping it is the case, because that's a really easy fix. A few feet of new pipe and we'll be sorted.

Anyhow, I must get on, because I've been avoiding my application long enough :)

Things have been going less well, and more well, depending. The driveway is now two cars wide, and that, frankly, is a good thing. The mog and the DAF are happily nuzzled next to each other, and the Bikes lurk up at the top end. The bad thing is that neither of the cars is running. Jejy the DAF is still waiting for a cylinder head, but the other DAF, Vixy, should be coming back today.

Ian, I think, at the garage, unfortunately put (at least) one of the springs on wrong, didn't realise until he'd reassembled the car, and then had to take it back out. They rang me to ask what might be causing the problem, and we had a nice chat ending with that as the most likely possibility. He rang yesterday and said he'd been a bit of an idiot, and he's not sure how he did it, but yes, the springs were in wrong. Apparently she should be back this morning.

I'll be swapping her for Jejy, who will be going there to have the cylinder head swapped because

a) I have no engine crane
b) The weather is hideous at the moment

She's then got to get welded, lots, because her MOT expires soon :-/

But what's really upset me recently is the bank. Years ago I ran a company as a partnership. Well, the company and the partnership ended somewhat acrimoniously, and after about 6 months of me, alone, paying the company debts I decided I'd had enough of that, and reached a deal with our business manager.

We would split the remaining debt 50/50, I paid off mine immediately, with a loan from said bank, and she - entering debt management - would pay off the other half over a much longer period of time. Once my side of the debt was paid I filled in the paperwork to say change the account to a sole-trader account in her name.

Yeah.

I heard nothing for the last 4 years, and then I received a demand for payment of 17 quid last week. I was annoyed, but no-where near as annoyed as I am now. The bank never completed the sole trader conversion and because my ex-business-partner has apparently decided to stop paying her debt, rather than chase her they've gone for the easy option.

Because I have a personal account with LloydsTSB, they've taken the money out of that. Apparently they did it before, they claim they sent me a letter, but since it happened last month and I've not got that letter, and it happened the same time as I paid in my inheritance... I missed the 160 quid they took.

And it gets better. They have no intention of doing anything more than sending her letters, and then taking the money from my account. Having had an endlessly frustrating conversation with a business manager yesterday I came to the conclusion the only way to stop this is to close all my Lloyds accounts.

Fuck them, quite frankly.

I know, at the end of the day, I'll end up paying, because I have so much to loose by not paying. And at the end of the day it's not that much. But frankly, Lloyds can get stuffed if they think they're ever having any more of my business.

I've already opened an account elsewhere. I'll go and pay off my loan once I've showered, finish off the opening of the other account and then over the course of this week I hope to be completely separated from LloydsTSB. Insurance, credit card, all cancelled. Goodbye Lloyds.

This then is my advice to you all: If you start a business, no matter how you feel, get a partnership agreement. Don't bank with the same bank you use for your personal account, because banks are banks and they will fuck you over. Get everything in writing, every last god-damned word that comes from their lying little mouths. If you don't hear anything, get a response from them somehow about what's going on.

And lastly, remember, they will screw you over for every last shiny penny you have.

*sighs*

Right.

I had some other news, the nature of which escapes me.

Oh yes, so Nikki did her EVCast from here a few weeks ago, and I couldn't help but notice that the bandwidth she got was somewhat less than I'd come to expect from our connection. It's not like we've got a whacking great hose of a connection, like she has, but it's pretty quick.

Today I did the quiet line test; it wasn't awful, but it was a little poppy - and our connection does go to shit when it rains. So I'll be reporting it to BT later today. Hopefully we'll get something a bit better soon.

So, someone, I'm fairly certain, said that you could swap cylinder heads on a DAF 44 with the engine in situ. There's not a great deal of space in there, but it appeared like, certainly on the R hand cylinder head it was feasible.

I spent the entire day stripping apart the car - documented here, for posterity, on flickr - only stopping when I realised it wasn't actually possible to do it at all. That would be when the rockers were off and I slid the head up the studs and realised that 'no; no amount of wiggling is going to make this come off'. Part way through reassembly the builder arrived. He says he rang, but he didn't, not any number I've got. I scrabbled the exhaust back on and we pushed Jejy out onto the road. I then completed reassembly of the DAF on the road, and contemplated that the skip needs loading with rubble.

This evening I need to move the motorbikes and mark out the curve for the driveway.

Tomorrow they make the driveway wider and hopefully we can stop being quite so antisocial.

So, Rebecca wouldn't start before, could that be anything to do with her immobiliser? Still at least she's having a chance to warm up before she goes and sits on an island for two days...

So, today I'm hoping to whip the head off Jejy and replace it with a new one (sent by the ever lovely Rich) - unfortunately he needed to send it urgently and discovered, somewhat sadly, that the exhaust was stuck. Apparently he's lopped it off so it'll fit in the box.

So I need to get that off.

Before I do that I need to work out why the minor's not running - I suspect the hot weather's evaporated all the petrol - and means that I need to prime the petrol pump. A new and novel fault. But she needs to go out on the road, anyway, so the DAF can go up on the drive...again.

I also need to find my battery charger, because both Rebecca and the Motorbike's batteries are suffering from sitting. I looked in the attic - I was fairly convinced it was up there - but I can't see it anywhere. I now have a selection of places where it's not (where I thought it was) - and am wondering where's left to look.

So, all in all a fairly busy day; which is why it's a bugger that it decided to rain last night because while the rain almost certainly did the garden good (albeit somewhat late, since we watered it last night) it didn't help with my sleeping - when the huge flash of lightning whipped across the sky I was suddenly awoken - and it wasn't raining at that point - so I couldn't lie there and listen to the rain. I just led there listening to rumbles of thunder and the whiiiiiirrrr-squeek of the desk-fan upstairs and contemplated that I'd just woken from a rather horrid dream where I'd been about to be shot; again*.

Trying to get back to sleep was accompanied by a return to that dream, which left me not really wanting to sleep for a while :(

At any rate, it's now morning and I'm waiting for it to be late enough for me to go and be noisy. 0830's a little early to be antisocial. 0900, then I'll go and persuade Rebecca to start :)

I'm still hopeful that I might be able to cancel the hire-car this afternoon.

* I think that was about the third replay of that bit. The interesting thing was I wasn't scared about being shot, I was worried about what'd happen to Kathryn after I was shot by the assailant. Fun fun fun.

So I decided this morning, given that I had a couple of hours to kill before my appointment at the bank (debt reduction continued) - that I'd 'pop' to B&Q, get a tap for the garden, and fit it.

Yeah.

So I went to b&q and I got the tap. Without a car the proper plumbing place is too far away. I contemplated hoses, but thought, nah; just get the tap and a new T piece to replace the 90 degree bend the builders put under the sink.

I got back. I pulled the plumbing stuff out of the shed; there in the bag were yorkshire connectors, a thingie of flux (or two), and some wire wool, and in the process I also pulled out my blowtorch. Score.

Then I went back to the shed and got the pipe cutter.

Then I went back to the shed and got the PTFE tape.

I poked in my toolbox and remembered that I don't have a 16mm drill bit long enough to go through the wall. Rats, I thought. Collected my stuff and went back to B&Q.

Geeeeeze they're expensive. If it weren't for the punative charges most plumbers charge just to turn up and debate the merits of your plumbing it wouldn't have been worth buying. Frankly, it wasn't really worth buying, but it cost less than getting a plumber in.

Then I drilled a hole in the wall and realised it was time for me to go to the bank.

Walk to the bank and back in the hot, hot sun.

Pay off loan.

Get back, ring I&A and find out the car won't be ready. Make whimpering noises. Realise I'm going to have to book a rental car again. *sigh*.

Eat lunch.

Cut some pipe and realise, somewhat belatedly, that there are, in fact, no 90 degree bends in my collection of yorkshire joints. Expanders to go to 22(?)mm, yup. T pieces, two bags of. Straight joints, millions of the buggers. Right angle joints? Not a one.

Curse. Walk back to the store. Buy 90 degree bends.

Come back, get half way through fitting things, realise I'm very low on PTFE tape. There's definately enough to do the inside bits though. Note that the builder's compression joints are done up much tighter than mine ever are. Put it all together, find it leaks like a sieve. Because... the builder's crushed the pipes where the olives* fit for the compression joints. Curse.

Go and buy more PTFE tape and some more olives.

Stare longingly at air conditioners**, debate evaporative coolers, go to Agroes and get some very cheap crappy hose-pipe set, because frankly, I want to water the garden and wash the car, and that's about your lot.

Cut out all the builder's pipe work. Replace with new, nice shiny Kate pluming. Mutter to myself that I really should have gone to find the level before attaching the pipe to the tap, because it's miles off level.

Check it's all working.

Load up the bread maker with stuff to make bread.

Collapse on the sofa drinking 'Breakfast Redbush' - which I'm not convinced is deeply different to normal red-bush, but is nice. Take shower. Sit in front of fan feeling hot.

Contemplate whether I'll have time to ring the Student Loan company to find out how to pay off my loan...

* These are a soft ring of metal that gets squashed such that you get a seal.
** Wouldn't it be nice if there was a nice environmentally responsible way to have Aircon?

The scrappage scheme in the UK has removed another polluting car from the roads...



*sighs*

That minor is f*cking beautiful. Perhaps the underside looks like crap, but I suspect not. I think that after more than 40 years on the road producing around 38mpg - the same as a modern car - with little to no usage of resources it's been scrapped to prop up a corrupt and depressing parliamentary system. Anything where the heads of an industry too stupid and blind to change their production to move away from producing cars which are just as dirty as they were 40 years ago, when the technology is there to do so, get to influence government policy so markedly does not deserve to survive.

Dear labour: Fuck. You. All.

I want real green policies which will actually change the world for the better. I want transformations to the way the country is run so that it isn't run for big business and with disgraceful invasions of people's privacy.

It's shameful that the policy they instigated to prop up the motor manufacturers for a few more months / years is destroying bits of our heritage. They should be ashamed.

As a side point, it made me tempted, for once, to break the law. Obtain a chassis plate from a wreck, and switch them, so that the unrestorable wreck gets crushed and the wreck can be on the road. It's called 'ringing', and is notorious and illegal, but the scrapping of that car is just plain wrong.

*sighs*.

Get me out of this country, please.

So, the summer's quite definately here. It is somewhat 'hot'. We've lost the duvet (just an empty duvet cover on the bed now), a fan runs at night trying to keep us cool, and in the lounge we have the potential for a 1930s diorama.

The fan in the lounge is finicky (to put it midly), needs it's motor rebuilding because it's sintered metal bearing, the fan's cord is probably 1950s, because it's proper rubber, not PVC, but it's all good, because it works nicely (once you've got the motor's axle positioned appropriately in the bearing) and I love the fact that it works really rather well.

Of course, it's joined in the potential diorama by the gramophone records and player, and really, if we extend a little further, the UK's first model of 'modern' steam iron, and a hoover junior...

So, Kate gave me her 2G iphone. Kate is lovely, did I mention that? Battered though its case is, it works perfectly and I've been delighting in it's shininess; even more so now that with the addition of RedSn0w it's jail broken. The only difficulty was the nice walk-through I found for jailbreaking said phone, such that I can use it with my Vodaphone Payg SIM was a little misleading. It had a link to the wrong firmware, which iTunes, thankfully, said "no, I won't brick your phone with that"; however a link on the site said "don't upgrade to iTunes 8.2, it breaks the jailbreaking procedure" - so I whipped out my trusty google and hunted down 8.0.1, or somesuch.

After a bit of a dink it was installed, and informed me that my iPhone had OS3.0 on it and it wasn't going to talk to an old copy of iTunes, it needed to be upgraded to 8.2

Sensing a difficulty here, I reupgraded to 8.2 and went hunting. I discovered that actually their link was only to the 3G phones, not for the 2G phones, and that's why it wasn't working. So then I got the right firmware, and lo, the phone is now available for use. I'm tempted to obtain twitter accounts and twitter away. Only concern is...what might I say when I'm at work...

I also, suddenly had a realisation - I've not heard back from the Tax office about my 'nurses discount', for want of a better word. Nurse's pay is, frankly, crap. I listened to some bloke whining about his take-home of 30k ('a very limited income') and thought how nice it'd be to earn 30k. Gosh, I could afford to get many things done on that which currently aren't even a possibility.

Anyhow, suddenly I thought, hang on a minute... I'm meant to be getting some tax back, and realised that I last heard anything about the progress of the claim in April. Slow they are, but this is ridiculous. So I rang them today, there's a mistake. Apparently they're having a new computer system installed which means that they're even less helpful than usual.

I'm now waiting for a call back which they can't guarantee will be today. Or tomorrow. Or indeed in this lifetime.

Still. I'll keep poking them with sticks until they give me my money back :-/

So, this was going to be a whiny depressed post. A fed up rant at all things DAF shaped, at myself for my desire to run classic cars as daily drivers, at the world for frustrating me every time I think I'm wining. That kind of tedious thing.

Why is this? Well, because this weekend an awesome band of wonderful people descended on Slough to aid and abet me in my classic car and MZ fetish. Enablers, one might call them. They rock. Nikki and Kate and John I've known for many years and they are known lovely people. Kate has overlooked my initial poor first impression (If I'd've written to Points of View I'd've been 'angry of Colerne'), and is incredibly patient for someone with no interest whatsoever in classic cars with her partner's interest and my obsession and came to Slough for a day which would be both long and involve very little of interest to her (she was also awesome because she helped Kathryn out).

Nikki has been mentioned many times, respected EV advocate she may be, but there lurks deep in her soul a dark secret. She still likes classic cars, even if they've got an Internal Combustion Engine. And while she's not quite into the quirky bizarritude of classics that I am (Is it Communist? Is it Obscure and impossible to get new bits for? I'm in!) - she gathered her cadre and brought forth a person who I'd only met once before who possibly wins in the awesome stakes, because he injured himself in the call of getting someone he barely knows mobile in a non-ev.

John, for long time journal readers is a known fine gent. I recall him ferrying me back home after I had my wisdom teeth removed and while I was still under the effects of a general anesthetic. Despite me living 45 minutes from Bristol by that time and the fact it was snowing, he took me home and looked after me for the afternoon. He came, he soldered, and he went. He rocks too.

But Adam, Adam wins for helpfulness beyond the call of duty. I met him once, and between him, Nikki, Kate and John I felt a pining for Bristol. They are all part of what makes Bristol such a good place to live, and his generosity is proof that good human nature is extant. He came and helped out for an entire day to assist in rebuilding someone's car who he'd barely met.

Between them they bring 'rocking' to a whole new level.

So why the rant?

Well, while disassembling and reassembling the engine I discovered this:



And the general response from the owner's club was "you'd've noticed if it was a problem by now" - but let's be honest, that relied on me actually doing my research properly, and I was slack. With the engine very hot it more or less runs on both cylinders, not well, but it does. Pulling the plug from either cylinder produced an engine that ran attrociously. I should, however, have done it when cold. Or looked at the plugs from both cylinders. When I stripped the engine I wasn't certain how so much oil had ended up in the cylinder bore. I should have thought more about it.

We went to move the Minor to extract the DAF from the drive. The minor wouldn't start. I suspect that the fuel pump needs priming - two weeks of baking heat have presumably evaporated the fuel. That has never happened before, though, and was frustrating.

On reassembly, on Saturday night, at around ten PM, the engine limped and dragged the car around at the speed of a sloath. It actually required people pushing the car to get it back up on the pavement. After the very unfortunate and expensive discovery that I was on an early shift yesterday, not, as I'd thought, a late (requiring in the end 2 taxis), I came back from work and looked at the car. John, from the club, suggested that the uneven running might be that it was still firing on one cylinder. It was.

Because the side with the cracked head? It's full of oil. I can make the car run beautifully for about 30 seconds by cleaning the plug, after which the oil fouls it completely and that cylinder becomes a display only one. The car is not immobile, but not driveable. As I contemplated the rust that needs repairing, the miriad of problems it's had (70k miles is not a huge amount, but I think the maintenance has left something to be desired) and my (perceived) manifold failures in decision making, I was feeling deeply frustrated.

I was feeling a little better today, having at least organised supply of a replacement head for not very much, but it wasn't going to arrive for at least a week. I resigned myself to at least another week of hire cars, and prepared to go and collect the rental - and then couldn't find my debit card. I swore and stomped around and cursed the world. Kathryn very sweetly put up with me, for reasons I can't quite work out, rather than telling me to grow up, which is what I really should have done.

Having found it I went and collected the card, and came back to find an incredibly nice e-mail from another star of incredible proportions. A fine gent in Ireland offered to send me a spare 44 cylinder head, potentially such that it would arrive this week. Potentially enabling me to get the car back on the road at the end of the week. If I catch the colleague from work, the welding might be done, and lo, the DAF shall rise again. Hopefully I&A will ring soon with a "the car's ready" message and all shall be right in the world. Ish.

It's been really hot and dry all week. I've been lying here being appropriately sick. Today the plan was to put the engine together and clean up and spray some bits of the car that are somewhat rusty, and wire brush/sand down/fill the bonnet and spray the passenger door for the other DAF.

I get up at 7:15 to have breakfast, look out the window and... it's raining. It's forecast to be stormy and rainy all fricking day. Apparently it might clear up a bit after lunch.

Bloody pants, is what I say. I'm hoping it'll be dry tomorrow because if we get the engine back in tomorrow then I could do spraying tomorrow too (assuming Vixy's back) and then put the front of the car back together on Sunday, after work :-/

While my throat gets quite sore if I don't drink regularly (and, relatively speaking, a lot) it feels (and looks) a hell of a lot better. Although I forgot my antibiotics at lunch time - I've just spent about 20 minutes staring and going 'did I take 2 doses the first day, or one'?

Having finally settled on the fact that I did take two doses it became apparent that I didn't take my lunchtime dose today; which is presumably why I feel postively much better than I did. I've just downed it. Better late 'n never. I'll just shuffle the dinner ones to somewhat later. Maybe eat a crunchy bar with it.

Anyhow, I know I'm feeling better because I'm bored and antsy. I can see the car sat outside, but I promised not to do anything taxing today. And I'm off sick from work so I should rest (I keep telling myself that). *But* I did have some dink-jobs to do. The Technics amplifier that used to be my dad's which was swapped out a while back because the volume control was nadgered? Well, I realised that I finally have some pseudo-contact cleaner in the house, and while I'd love a new Cambridge Audio amp - but since they don't offer it with a universal power supply I am saving myself for when we go to Canada - and I was missing my vinyl.

I know, I'm a weird old freaky woman who likes her music on vinyl. I listen to MP3s just fine, but when I want music, pure plain music, music to *listen* to, then I want vinyl. Or of course crushed beetles and excreta - there's nothing like a crushed beetle and goo as a music storage medium. At any rate, so I wanted to have the record deck working again. And since the Denon MD50 which I have been using (dead CD Changer) is devoid of record-deck inputitude, I whipped the cover off the amp, unclipped the volume slider PCB and gave it a good old clean with brake/clutch cleaner (on the back in small print is the text which says you can use it on electrical connections and components too :) ). The amp is now back in service and you can move the slider without crackles and without, perhaps more importantly, randomly losing one or other channel.



Feeling positively buoyant after fixing that I stripped down the bread maker. I needn't have. Had I have been more open in thought when I looked at it, and less set on 'these screws hold it together' (they do, but not in the way I thought) - then I'd've found (one) of the faults much quicker. It's obviously been apart before, I'm not quite sure why (which worries me) - but the person who put it together (who I can't say I'm greatly impressed with, in quality or competence terms) managed to leave the element disconnected.

Neither of these are exactly greatly complex repairs, really. I'm just running the bread maker through a cycle - of course, we're still short part of the kneading mechanism anyhow... And it's just finished the cycle. It didn't burst into flames and only made normal hot metal smells - so I'm guessing it might be worth forking out for the bits to go in it to make it work.

That done I've settled in to listen to a selection of singles which I've not heard for a long time, and just to generally relax for the rest of the afternoon. Temptation lurks outside the door where Jejy sits with her rusty front end looking hopefully at me, but I am strong. That and my throat's feeling a little sore after spending a while talking to my mum on the phone.

As a side point, summer very definately seems to be here. It's warm enough in the house to be uncomfortable - when I'm back to being well I'm going to have to pull down the fan. I'm contemplating bringing down the '30s fan - I wish I knew how to get that grill repaired, or the grill remanufactured. I also need to dig out a bearing supplier to replace the broken sintered bearing - which while I oiled it and turned it around so that the worn surfaces aren't in use so much - it's not really quite right - and the oscillation function doesn't work. The whole thing needs a more thorough strip down than I did the first time - but the motor still works. I'd also like to know if the motor will deal with 110v/60Hz (because that's useful information).

["Come join the revolution, get yourself a constitution; Come join the revolution now!"]

Sorry; distracted for a minute there.

Had a sudden weird moment contemplating the fact that the music in this room spans from 1918 (one of my gramophone records) to 2009. That's nearly a century of music sat in the lounge. The next single on my playlist was pressed from vinyl in 1961. And the current one from the year I was born. It's a bit weird, sometimes.

Anyhow; I think I'm done rambling. I think I shall go in search of morphy richards spares (the inside of that breadmaker was one of the most depressing insights into modern appliances that I could have envisaged) and hope that I can get the missing bits... especially now I appear to have 'fixed' it.

Unless I'm lying in bed feeling like I'm dying I feel guilty about taking time off - more and more the better I feel the more I feel like I should be at work. Today I was feeling positively guilt ridden - especially since I was feeling well enough to take back the rental Car (a Ford Ka, the less said about the experience of driving such a 'car' the better, I feel*).

Anyhow. So I gently got myself in the car; I wasn't feeling awful but not brilliant either. By the time I'd dropped off the car and got back home (with a lift from the enterprise people who are continuing to impress me. They're open on time, they give you a lift home, they even returned my house key that I left in the car!) I am back to feeling pants.

Therefore I am right to take today and tomorrow off.

Apparently Vixy should be back with us soon. Ra!

* The more I encounter modern cars the less I feel I understand why people like them. Okay they're quick, but soulless too, and the interior of the Ka Style felt like cheap tacky plastic stuck on a cheap tacky body. It sounded like it still had a Kent engine, and apparently it possibly still has** (I'm having a bit of difficulty deciding which engine it's got).
** Question: Why does Britain hate its engineering heritage so much? Is it shame at our past? Because when Rover kept using the venerable A-Series derivatives; a fantastically designed petrol engine, it was derided; when Ford keep using the Kent engine (also a 1950s derivative) which I think is no-where near as nice, they get to call it a Duratec and it's all okay?

Heh.

I'm good at the whining, no? *cough cough* ;)

Seriously, a few thoughts that have occurred today:

+ I really should update the website, I've not been 26 for a while...
+ It doesn't even link to my flickr page - the photo gallery has been unchanged since about 2k6 too..
+ I need to get out there with my camera some more. I've been neglecting that hobby badly; and my old SLR is feeling sad too.
+ Antibiotics still make me feel crap, but my tonsils have less pus on them than yesterday, which has got to be a good thing.
+ My beloved wife is the most awesome person, she turned up at home today with an innocent smoothie, an a copy of practical classics (and half a twix bar) :)))
+ "I was going to get you New Scientist but I couldn't remember if you like it" *grins*. She rocketh.
+ She's making a cake! For us! And she's letting me sit on the couch and loaf because "you're sick". She is *such* a wonderful person to me. I totally don't deserve someone so awesome.
+ DAR
+ We ate peas and beans from the garden today and they were hell-a tasty.
+ Carpenters appear to have similar time keeping skills to builders. I.e. none at all. Looks around at all the carpenteering that's gone on today (i.e. none) and mutters darkly.
+ Builders are very happy to put off work. 'Can you come in a weeks time' 'oh! no problem'.
+ I&A Car Services, in Slough, continue to inspire me with ongoing competence.
+ Some e-bay sellers do not, although the world is tormenting me by supplying all the things that didn't arrive while I was working on the car in my week off.
+ The final season of The Wire starts off damn harsh. Last season though. Why did I not know about this when it was on?!
+ I've opted to take the other 2 days I was meant to work at the beginning of the week off sick. Pustular tonsillitis I've decided, warrants a few days off. More importantly the feeling like crap on antibugs warrants it.