Dinked

Events of note at work so far this week:

• Group of Japanese tourists arriving at 7am, buying fuel for their car, and then photographing each other outside the shop, collapsing in helpless, excited laughter at our coal bunkers.  

• Man buying coffee from the coffee machine and then demanding I add more coffee, as it wasn't coffee-y enough.  I was tempted to chew up a mouthful of coffee beans and spit them into his drink, but I managed to refrain, and merely made him a fresh cup, which was apparently "fine."

• Being handed a crumpled five pound note with wet cowshit on it.  This happens far more often than is acceptable.

• Man buying a pasty, then remaining at the till to harangue me (and other customers) about the terrible recent case of a young girl who was found dead after a row with her family. He was bellowing "She was hanged!  There's more to that than we're being told!" at a polite man trying to pay for his diesel for quite a long time.  

• Being asked many technical questions about putting oil in a car by someone who has no idea whether their car is a petrol or a diesel, and aren't even sure if it needs oil, but "a light has come on so it probably does."  All this while a long, impatient queue of people builds up behind them, while they ponder what they actually want at their leisure.

• Woman wanting a gas canister, then wanting to do complicated stuff about changing from one canister size to another, which only our managers are allowed to authorise, and then getting hugely annoyed when told how much the canister she asked for in the first place costs.  There was a degree of huffing and flouncing, which made the man in the queue behind her roll his eyes expressively at me.

• Woman running into the shop and asking me "Did I just put petrol in my car??" When I said no, she said "I've been swimming in the sea, it's messed with my head!"

Ah, people.

In other news, Mr WithaY and I (and the dog) went to visit some very dear friends down in deepest Sussex earlier this week.  They live in a cottage on a rather excellent country estate, so we went for several dog-walks through the meadows and woods.  Their dog is a charmer, and he and ours played together most endearingly.  Our dog retired to her basket when we got home, and slept for about 18 hours solidly.  She can't party like she used to.

I wanted to take photos of The Big House there, because it is a beautiful (possibly) Elizabethan manor house with a Horsham stone roof, but I felt that  might be a bit intrusive and gawky, so you will just have to imagine it.

We travelled down in Mr WithaY's new truck, which is far more comfortable than the LandRover was, and much more practical. It's a double-cab pick-up with a roof on the pick-up bit at the back, so there;s room for 5 people and tons of stuff too.  He's very pleased with it.

But what happened to the LandRover, I hear you ask?

Well.

Several months ago, Mr WithaY was off to the woods to work, where he planned to be for a long weekend.  He packed all his kit into his car, said a fond farewell to me and the dog, and headed off.  Some hours later, I was at work, and he came into the shop to ask if he could borrow my car.

"What happened to yours?" I enquired.

"Crashed it," he replied somewhat tersely.  I gave him my car keys, with a stern injunction not to crash mine too.  He disappeared again, returning several days later with a sad tale of bouncing off a woodland track at 10 miles an hour and hitting a tree.

Unfortunately, the age of the vehicle, and the substantial nature of the damage inflicted - lights smashed, bonnet crumpled, side panel dented, bumper broken - meant that the insurance company wrote it off, hence the need for a new truck.  The tree, you will be pleased to hear, was undamaged, not even getting a dent in the thick moss covering the trunk.

Oh, and Mr WithaY was fine too.

While Mr WithaY was away over that long weekend, we had a new fence put up.  It replaced the horrible tatty broken fence which ran along the side of the gardens, front and back.  A team of charming young landscape gardeners came to erect it* and worked like Trojans from morn** till night***, pausing only briefly for cups of tea.

On the eventful Friday afternoon when Mr WithaY had broken his car, I was in the house, having been at work all morning.  There was a knock on the front door.  One of the gardeners stood there, looking anxious.  If he'd had a flat cap on, he'd have been tugging nervously at the peak.

"Hello," I said.  Have you finished already?"

"No," he replied.  "We've dug a hole for the last fencepost, but it's full of water."

"Oh, never mind about that! Our water table round here is really high. I bet it'll be fine."

He agreed with me, and said they had some finishing off to do, and could sort out the last bit of fence in an hour or so, once the water level had dropped again.

An hour or so later, there was another knock on the door.  He looked positively anguished.  The flat cap would have been clutched in nerveless hands, wrung with despair.

"Come and look at this," he said.  That's never good.  I followed him around to the side of the house where the fencepost hole was brimming with water, and a stream had formed running down onto the back lawn.

"Fuck."  I said.

He nodded sadly.

To cut a (very) long story slightly shorter, it turned out that our water main runs down that side of the house, and in digging the hole, they had managed to somehow disturb the pipe and cause a massive leak.  Several hours of panicking, phoning plumbers, phoning Wessex Water and trying to build makeshift dams with breeze blocks followed.

Thankfully, Wessex Water were able to come out the following day and fix the problem, but they suggested that if we ever win the Lottery we might consider having all our external water pipes replaced.  Cheers for that.

It is traditional for some domestic disaster to occur when Mr WithaY is away, so I'm pretty used to it now.  I ought to make a Domestic Disaster Bingo Card, and keep myself amused guessing what will happen next.











*Sorry.

**About 8am-ish
***About teatime

Too much information

Once again, my car has been a complete and utter pain in the arse.

I went to visit my lovely Mum earlier this week.  Just for a day, more or less on a whim, off out for lunch somewhere nice and a chance to chat and catch up.  We were both looking forward to it very much.

She has a camellia in full flower in her front garden, incredibly early.  Look:

I left home bright and early, driving carefully through a thick frost and threatened (but not actual) snow flurries, and hit the motorway in fine time.  The radio was on, the weather was improving with every mile, and all was well with the world.

Until I got to the outskirts of Southampton.  The Salisbury side, not the Portsmouth side.  That's approximately the halfway point on the the journey, in terms of time, if not mileage.

At that point, me chugging along in the middle lane of the motorway, the needle on my car's speedometer started acting oddly.  First it bounced up and down, as if in time to the music.  I watched it with cold foreboding, wondering if I was perhaps kangarooing along without noticing.  Nope, still cruising along at about 75.

The it dropped to 0.  No miles per hour.  I knew this was wrong, as I was overtaking a slower-moving lorry at the time, and he was doing at least 45.

My heart rate compensated though, and climbed steadily as I continued to drive along the motorway, now without the benefit of speed indication.

Every now and again the needle flickered, bouncing up to 10 or 20mph, then gave up and sank back to 0.  The remainder of the drive was stressful.

Unfortunately, I was so stressed by this that I ended up cutting my visit shorter than I had planned so as to drive home in daylight, which I felt would be safer.  A few miles into the return trip I had to brake sharply at a roundabout (thanks, insensate old man in the silver Audi, you know who you are) at which point the needle jerked back into life for the remainder of the journey home.

Rather than travel all the way back to the Toyota garage which recently replaced the turbo - £1500 thank you very much indeed - I took it to the local 4x4 garage in town.  They diagnosed and repaired the problem within an hour, all for less than £50.  Apparently there was "dirt on the speedo sensor" and once they'd taken it apart and cleaned it, everything was fine.

It made a refreshing change from "Aaaaah yes, we know about this.  It's a known fault...Toyota did offer a free repair for this but you missed it by a month/100 miles/a roll of the random Dice of Fate.  Sorry about that.  That'll be four billion pounds please."

I have had speedo issues before, but that time they were much less straightforward to fix.

All's well that ends well. I have a car that tells me how fast it's going, and I am still able to afford the thin gruel and dry bread that Mr WithaY and I are subsisting on  now that we're both unemployed.

Actually, I was wondering about this.  Am I technically "unemployed" when I am not registered as such, or actively seeking work, or claiming unemployment money?

I did apply for a job recently.  It didn't go well.

I mentioned it a while ago - a local, part-time job.  Only a couple of days a week,and not even full days.  Low money, but really easy to fit in around other stuff, and the opportunity to meet people on a regular basis.  It sounded quite handy, so I filled in an online application form and waited to hear from them.  The next day I had a phone call from their HR department, inviting me for an interview.

Readers, the next time I am at an interview for what is basically a part-time cleaning job, I won't mention developing and delivering secondary legislation to a tight timescale when asked "Can you give me an example of when you were under pressure at work?"  Or managing a billion pound contract replacement project, when asked to give an example of working in a team.  Or talk about briefing hostile high-profile stakeholders  when asked to give an example of dealing with people I didn't get on with.

Ah well.

I was told that I would hear from them within seven to ten days.  I think they'd sent the rejection email before I actually left the premises.

Godzilla service pack

I've got several blog posts sitting in the Drafts folder, started, then abandoned, like a too-big sandwich that you thought you could manage, but it turned out you couldn't.

There are several reasons for this, including the old favourites "utter laziness", "lack of enthusiasm for the subject matter that is my life" and of course "distracted by watching a film on TV and forgetting all about the blog."

Additional reasons which are slightly less dull and objectionable include:

Christmas.  I know it happens at the same time every year, but even so.  Things were busy, what with going out a fair bit, and enjoying spending time at home with Mr WithaY and various friends who have been calling in to visit.  A couple of Mr WithaY's former colleagues called in the week before Christmas for tea and mince pies, and it was very nice to hear about how shite things are in the office.  Mr WithaY was able to enjoy the gossip and then sigh happily to think that he is well out of all that madness now.

We had a party.  It was successful, in that all the food was eaten (and I think enjoyed), nobody left in a high dudgeon (as far as I know) and nothing got smashed.  Well, only a few of the guests.  In fact, that felt like the start of Christmas, and things have been mostly very nice ever since.

However.

The night of our party, ten minutes before the guests started to arrive, we had a phone call from a very dear friend.  His wife, another very dear friend, had been gravely ill following a heart attack.  Horrible.  We'd been informed of this by her brother a few days earlier, so were already anxious.  Anyway, her husband rang us to let us know that there had been more tests run, including an MRI scan, and that the results were devastatingly bad. In fact, he all but said that they were now just waiting for the end.  Well, fuck.  We (me, Mr WithaY and our recently-married mate who was staying with us for the party) had a stiff drink, I had a bit of a cry, and then we had to put on our best smiley faces and greet our guests.

All things considered, it was a very good party, but it was a bit weird.  At one point I went and sat outside on the bench in the front garden and looked at the stars, and had a surreptitious little weep (I had been drinking a fair bit, if that's any mitigation) but other than that, it all went well.

Recent news of our friend's progress  is fractionally encouraging, but not much.  We're waiting to see what happens.

The traditional Christmas Cold has made its annual appearance too.  Mr WithaY succumbed to it on Boxing Day, and since then has spent his time wrapped in many, many layers of fleece and wool, taking Beechams and accruing a huge mound of balsam tissues on the floor beside him, which then get ritualistically thrown on the fire, in a sort of Viking burial for germs.  I thought I'd got away with it until today.

I have not got away with it, however, and today I am developing my very own germ Valhalla mound.

Also, I got my car back this week.  It had a broken turbo, it turned out, and as a result I had to spend £1500 to get it fixed.  Fucking Toyota parts.

For that kind of money, I want my new turbo personally delivered by Godzilla.  On a bed of carefully-sliced fugu fish.  With a band of high-ranking Samurai warriors as escort.

They should do that.  Call it the "Godzilla Service Pack."  I'd buy it.

Anyhoo, the car is running well again, and if I felt less shite I dare say I'd go out in it.

So, Happy New Year to you all.  Thank you for taking the time to read and sometimes comment on my blog, I appreciate it very much.

I'd still write it, but it's more fun knowing there's an audience out there.

Decorated

Christmas is almost here!  I'm excited, which is nice.  The last couple of years have been slightly odd.  Two years ago we barely celebrated at all, what with all the SSFH* crap that we had to deal with, and last year we both had heavy colds and chest infections, but this year (so far) we are both hale and hearty, and looking forward to the festive season.

I've been very busy Making Things, which has been both productive and enjoyable.  I have made (in no particular order):

1)  About a gallon of Christmas spiced cranberry and port preserve, containing cranberries, oranges, apples, sugar and port.  And spices. Nom nom nom.

2)  A beautiful rose out of wired parcel ribbon, which I just made up as I went along, and was very pleased with.  In a gesture of largesse, I gave it to one of Mr WithaY's mates who had popped in quickly for something one evening.  He took it graciously, if bemusedly, and said he'll put it in his Landrover.  So that was nice.

3)  A huge and delicious fruit salad, containing cherries, pineapple, grapes, blueberries, mandarins, peaches, lychees and figs.  It was splendid, though I say so myself.

The fruit salad was to take to my lovely Mum's house, as we had the tradtional pre-Christmas family gathering last weekend.

London Niece's birthday is around this time of year, so we all met up to celebrate that, and to exchange Christmas presents and cards, and to see each other before the holidays really got under way.   It was lovely, if noisy, everyone was looking well** and looking forward to Christmas.  We ate and drank and pulled crackers and popped party poppers, and had birthday cake.

The cake was interesting.

As we didn't have the required number of small candles (16), there was a blinding display of ingenuity, and this was the result:

Thirteen, plus two, plus one.  A maths lesson AND a cake.

Previous birthday cake entertainment involving candles can be found here.

4)  The manga-stylee frock, which was London Niece's birthday present.  Readers, though I say so myself, it turned out rather well.

  

I had suggested that the best way to create it was if a top of the correct size was bought, sent to me, and I would make the skirt to match.  Which is what I did.  In the picture I was sent, the character has more decoration on the front of the top, but I left that off, as the top already had sequins all over the front, and adding anything else might have looked a bit weird.

Anyhoo, London Niece was very pleased.

The amount of swearing involved in making those ruffles though....gah.  It would have made a sailor blush.

Other news:  My car is broken again.  It's the same problem it had a few weeks ago - when you put your foot down there's a dramatic loss of acceleration, and the Engine Warning light comes on.

I took it to a local garage who ran a diagnostic check (£58 thank you very much) and returned it to me with the diagnosis "There's something wrong with the turbo.  Or maybe the electrics.  You should take it back to the Toyota garage"

Thanks.

I took it back to the Toyota garage last Friday morning.  I rang the Toyota garage yesterday (Monday) morning to ask if they had any idea when I could have my car back.

They said they'd have a chat with the chaps in the workshop and ring me later.  At ten to five that night they rang.

They hadn't found the problem, but it's something to do with the turbo.  Probably.  Did I want to come and collect my car?

I declined, on the grounds that if it was still broken there wasn't much point me driving all the way back here, then taking it all the way back there again in a day or two.

Gah.

In other, more cheerful, news, we have put our Christmas tree up and it looks lovely.  This is the top half.

Our decorations include the Christmas Lobster.  He has a teeny sprig of holly in one claw.

There's also the Christmas Hunter, complete with hound and dead deer.

And the Christmas Lobster Pots.

And the more traditional glass reindeer.

Awww.







*Shit Storm From Hades, now thankfully very much behind us.

**Except poor Youngest Sis - hope your back is feeling better!

Spendthrift

I have my PC back.  Hurrah.

It is much faster, the graphics are excellent and the box it's now in looks like something that would be capable of commanding a primitive civilisation on a distant planet if the fancy took it.

When I took the old computer in to the shop, the nice man talked me through the various things he would so to it.  He was very keen to let me know how expensive a new graphics card could be, and went over the options several times.

He asked me how much I was "wanting to spend" on the upgrade.  My honest answer would of course be "Nothing, you buffoon," but I had to lie.

He ran through the list of what needed doing, adding the approximate cost of each element.  It came to - worst case scenario - about £500.

Are you ok if it goes up to about 500 pounds? he asked me.  I agreed.  Well, having just had all the component  parts and associated costs explained thoroughly, it seemed unlikely that he would suddenly offer to do all the work for a lot less.

Cut to a few days later, and a telephone call from the computer shop.

Nice computer shop man:  Hello!  Your PC is ready for collection.

Me:  Oh excellent.  I'll pop into town and pick it up in a little while.  How much will it be?

NCSM:  £500.

Me:  Really.  £500 exactly?

NCSM:  Yep, although I'll do £475 for cash.

Me:  Hmm.  Well, I'll be there shortly.

I didn't have cash, so it was a convenient, non-itemised £500 in total.  What a strange coincidence, it costing the exact same amount as the maximum I'd said I was prepared to pay.  Good job I hadn't said "Oh, no limit..."

I'd probably have had to sell the house, all my guitars and a kidney.  Actually, I would have left my PC there and gone to buy a new one.  Just for spite.

In other absurdly-expensive news, my car needed some work doing to it this week.  Mr WithaY and I were on our way home from running a few errands in town on Saturday, Mr WithaY was driving my car.  As we went up the little hill out of town, the car lurched and struggled, then lost all acceleration.  The "engine warning " light came on.

"Fuck!" we both said in unison, as Mr WithaY pulled over to the side of the road and turned off the engine.

We sat there for a moment or two, then Mr WithaY started the engine again. The warning light stayed off, this time.  We continued home, where I rang the Toyota garage.

Remember them?  Remember when my flywheel was playing up and I had to spend over TWO THOUSAND POUNDS getting it fixed?  And Toyota declined to contribute towards the cost, even though it was a known fault, because I missed the extended warranty deadline by a matter of days?

I bloody do.

Anyway, the garage said they'd look at my car on Monday.  We dropped it off, and a few hours later the garage rang.  They said they'd found the problem with the fuel - a stuck *tech* valve - which was making it lose power.  They'd also given the car a "visual safety check" and discovered that one of the rear wheel bearings was "alarmingly worn."  Arse.

So, the optimistic "bit of dirt in the fuel line that will cost about 20 quid to sort out" scenario which I had been developing in my head turned into the "costly and unexpected yet vital repairs that cost over 500 quid" scenario which nobody ever wants.

 On the plus side, I have my car back and it doesn't seem to be about to expire in a gasping haze of smoke, or have a wheel drop off as I go round corners.  Which is nice.

Other news:  Business plans are developing, and as soon as I have something in writing I will start to explain in more detail.  Until then, it feels like tempting fate to talk about it.



 

Speed 2

The encountering odd people on public transport theme continues.  Allow me to share: 

Yesterday evening, as I was struggling into a seat on the bus to Waterloo, lugging my rucksack awkwardly into the luggage space and perching on the suspiciously clammy seat, I became aware of an Irritating Loud Woman. 

Irritating Loud Woman was on her phone, using a headset so that she had both hands free for Important Gesticulation And Shit.  Irritating Loud Woman was bellowing to her caller about all the travelling she had been doing.

ILW:  God I KNOW!  Yes...yes...I was there too recently.  Yes...booked a room on your recommendation actually.  Yes, loved it.  Amaaaaazing place! 

A short pause followed where she rolled her eyes and played with her handbag strap as the person on the other end of the phone had the temerity to play a speaking part in the conversation.  Her eyes narrowed and she threw in the trump hand grenade of bragging. 

ILW:  So...yeah...yeah...I was in China.  Yes.  (slightly louder) China.  Then Spain. Then Ireland.  *loud guffaw*  I know!  I've been home like 10 days in the last 2 months!  And I'm off to the Bahamas at the end of the month!  *guffaw*

It did occur to me to wonder why she was on the bus, albeit on the back seat, and not in a taxi, judging by the details of her jetset lifestyle.  As this uncharitable thought played through my jaded brain, a tall black girl with amazing dreadlocks marched down the aisle, dragging a selection of bags and a shopping trolley behind her.   

Tall black girl with amazing dreadlocks:  (In unexpected Yorkshire accent)  Scuse me!  Scuse me!  You.  Yeah you!  Can you stop being so loud on the bus please! 

ILW:  ......?

TBGWAD:  I can hear you right down the end!  Can you keep noise down please?

ILW:  .....?

I had to suppress a snort of delighted glee as the Irritating Loud Woman blushed deeply, then continued her conversation in a much quieter voice.  She moderated it down to normal speaking tones, I'd guess, rather than the show-off bellow she had previously deployed. 

The bus started pulling away from the stop we were at, throwing the girl with the dreads and bags into a panic.

TBGWAD:  (To the bus driver)  Scuse me!  Hey!  HEY!  Scuse me!  I need to gerroff here!  Stop bus!

The driver obliged, opening the doors.  There was a long and comical struggle as several people at the front of the bus jostled to help her with all her bags.  I think had we had more time, she would have been carried off in triumph on their shoulders, frankly.

I missed my train as a result but it was worth it.

I covertly watched the ILW for the remainder of the journey.  She was mortified.  I was glad.

Other news:  My car is fucked.  Gah. 

I was driving home from the railway station last night.  It was very dark.  It was very cold. So cold, in fact, that I had had to de-ice my car (inside and out) before I could leave the station car park.  It was getting late. 

I set off on the short but time-consuming trip through winding lanes and troll bridges, through the woods, through the little teeny villages, past the burned-down pub, up hill, down dale, over the river and back to Hobbiton. 

My thoughts were filled with the delicious roast chicken dinner* that I knew was waiting for me. 

I had just emerged from the bosky glades and hit the main road (Two lanes!  Some streetlights at the major junctions!) when I realised that my speedometer was stuck on 0.  Zero.  Nil. 

I knew that was wrong.  Well, I was moving, for a start. 

I was dopily looking at the speedo, then back at the icy road ahead, then back at the speedo, not sure if I was seeing things or not, and then the orange "Check Engine" warning light came on too. 

Ohhhh fuck noooooooo.

It may have been my imagination, but I would swear that I felt the car shudder, like a wounded beast about to roll over and die. 

There was a moment where I considered pulling over and phoning Mr WithaY to come and rescue me, but I bit my lip and ploughed on.  The car juddered again.  I stopped.  I switched off the engine, then restarted the car.  The "Check Engine" light went out.  I pulled away.  The speedo was still dead. There were several heavy seconds of anticipation, then the orange light came back on.

If you were driving towards Shaftesbury late yesterday evening, you may have heard what you thought was a siren, wailing eerily.  That was me.  Well, it was if the siren sounded like someone wailing "fucking hell nooooooooooo" for 5 miles non-stop. 

So, today I rang the chaps at the garage.  They told me take my car down there for them to look at.  There followed a couple of hours of traipsing back and forth to the garage, talking to the chaps, waiting for Chap 2 to return from a delivery to confer about technical stuff with Chap 1, Chap 1 making phone calls to Toyota, Chap 2 telling me horror stories about how badly things can go wrong with cars, and finally I was given a lift back home and told to Wait.

Later that same day, a call from the garage. 

Good news:  They know what's wrong.  I'd tell you, but my brain did that Star Trek thing of just hearing "tech...tech...tech....computer....tech....expensive....tech.....new part will be here on Friday....tech...£188 plus VAT.....tech."  I don't do it on purpose. 

It's like maths lessons used to be at school.  I started out every time with good intentions, but after 3 minutes my brain simply refused to acknowledge what was being said, and sent me pictures of Alex Lifeson and Bruce Dickinson, or composed endless bad poems I was going to write down as soon as I could find a nice enough poetry notebook. 

I swear, if I replayed every maths lesson I attended between 1977 and 1983, apart from the two weeks we did spatial geometry, which I understood and enjoyed**, it would just sound like white noise.

Bad news:  It wil cost £188 (plus VAT) for the part they need.  Plus labour.

Arse.

So.  I'm working at home tomorrow, as my car is not really safe to drive. 

And I might be selling my Rickenbacker.





*Mr WithaY is just great. 

**The maths teacher was flummoxed, and would ask me with irritation "If you can understand this, why can't you understand quadratic equations?"  I'm certain she thought I was doing it deliberately.  It never occurred to her that my failure to understand might in some way be linked to her unimpressive teaching skills.  Bah.

Crystallised

Well, here we are, a mere two weeks from Christmas.  Are we all ready for it, dear readers?  Have we got the mulled wine on a low simmer, the Christmas pudding clamped into the workbench ready to be chiselled into, the turkey nervously fingering its collar out in the garden? 

Me neither.

Although, to be fair, Mr WithaY and I have already made more festive effort than we did over the entire holiday season last year.  We have written and posted our cards, bought a Lidl pannetone, discussed what we want for Christmas lunch - we're hovering on "duck" at the moment, but it may well change - and we plan to put the tree up this weekend.

Last Christmas we did almost none of that.  No tree, as we weren't in the mood to put it up, very few cards and a festive season spent mostly sniffling and coughing at each other.  The aftermath of the SSFH* went on for a very long time, but now we both feel in the appropriate frame of mind to celebrate stuff again.  So that's nice.

All it needs this year is the annual Dinotopia-fest and I will feel as though we are back to normal.

Anyway.  Hasn't it been cold?  I'm well aware that we soft south-western pansies get very little in the way of severe weather compared to those in the frozen wastes up North, but what we do get we make the most of.   We had about a week with real snow on the ground, which was very pretty, and then another week or so of ice on top of that, turning the roads into glass.  GLASS.

Last Sunday, we thought we might pop over to Salisbury, as I was getting stir crazy from a month of housebound coughing due to the ongoing boring chest infection.  The sun was shining, and the snow was melting, and the roads looked fine.  Traffic was moving normally on the main road past the house. 

Mr WithaY's Landrover has been in fine fettle**, so we hopped in and headed off.  As you drive out of our village on the non-main road, there is a sharp bend before you get to the junction with the slightly bigger road.  We went into that bend doing about 20mph, maybe less.  We started to turn the corner, then we lost it and went sideways on a sheet of black ice, sliding gracefully towards the wall. 

Fortunately, there was nothing coming in the opposite direction, and we came to a halt before we hit anything, but it was quite unsettling.  We reached the junction, made an executive decision and turned in the opposite direction to Salisbury, opting instead to pay a visit to father in law WithaY at the nursing home. 

Our trip to the local hospital was less slidey, but it was still pretty cold and icy out there.  I'm glad that they keep X-ray departments so warm.  Having to strip down into a saucy open-backed hospital gown for a chest X-ray would have been miserable otherwise.  I get the results next week sometime, something nice to look forward to. 

The doctor referred me for an X-ray because he was a bit concerned that this is the fourth significant chest infection in two years.  He asked me lots of questions about foreign travel.  Had I been anywhere exotic recently?  Did I do much air travel?  Do I have any close friends who have come back from the Far East lately? 

Other than the flights to and from Boston this summer, I haven't been on a plane for ages.  None of my friends have been anywhere exotic as far as I know.  The closest thing to foreign travel is the bus from Waterloo to the office, which sounds like a lively debate at the UN most mornings, I suppose.

Apparently it's my lower right lung that was "rattling" - the same one that was badly infected last time, so I have a feeling it never went away properly.  Anyone would think I smoked 60 a day.  I have NEVER smoked.  Ever.  Gah.

So anyway.  As my car died, and the roads were too icy anyway, I went for a short stroll the other morning.  I took my camera, because the hoar frost was incredible.  I wore the hat with ear flaps, in case you were wondering.

It was bloody freezing though, so I didn't go very far before realising I couldn't feel my fingers.

How Christmassy is this, eh?  Very, that's how.

I saw some herons and egrets in the river, but by the time my frozen sausage fingers got my camera out, they had buggered off.

Look, there he goes, buggering off.

Brrr.

Now I need a cup of tea.  And possibly a crumpet.  With butter and jam.

Which reminds me, the ongoing weight loss has stalled a little, probably due to 4 weeks of chest infection and 2 courses of antibiotics.  And shitloads of crumpets.

The last lot of antibiotics I was on apparently cause "spontaneous tendon rupture" so I am still half expecting my arms and legs to fall off. 
 
I'll let you know.







*Shit storm from Hades.  Yes, I am stilll going on about it.

**Unlike my car which died after three days of the cold, and had to have its battery recharged.  I know how it felt, to be honest

Cars

I discovered the "Stats" thingy on Blogger recently.  What larks.  It shows me where all my readers are at any given moment, and which posts they are looking at.

Sadly, this has simply notified me that a lot of my traffic is from people who are looking at very old posts, mostly in Russia, the spamming bastards.  At least the word verification seems to have put paid to their antics.  Ah well.  As long as I don't analyse the stats too carefully I can pretend it's really people who are keen to read the words, and not just post adverts to their dodgy websites.  Bastards.

Today has been a bit like a traditional Whitehall farce, despite me not being in Whitehall.  I had a lot of complicated time-consuming work stuff to get through, so my laptop decided to re-enact a good old-fashioned go-slow.  Added to this, every 20 minutes or so it crashed whichever application I was using at the time, varying between Word, Excel and Powerpoint to keep me guessing. 

Mr WithaY arrived home unexpectedly mid morning as he had someone coming over to look at his old Landrover, languishing unloved since he got the new one.  There was a degree of arseing about as he fetched keys, and found paperwork, but then he scooted off again, returning a while later to meet the potential buyer.  The potential buyer turned into an actual buyer, but when he came back to collect the vehicle, Mr WithaY had gone back to work and the bloody thing wouldn't start.

He rang the doorbell and asked me if there was "any special technique" to starting it.  I said no, you just turn the key and off it goes.  He looked at me.  I looked at him.  We both looked at the Landrover, bonnet up while his wife fiddled about uselessly with the steering wheel.  I was already tetchy, due to the IT failures mentioned above, and also due to my ankle being painful after my latest trip to the physio, so I rang Mr WithaY at work and suggested he come home to sort this crisis out.  I was a trifle terse, I believe. 

There was an awkward silence as the farmer and his wife looked at each other, and at the Landrover sitting on the drive, silent and unmoving.  A brainwave struck me, and I mentioned that it had an immobiliser. The farmer's face lit up.  He dicked about with the key, then tried to start it, and hey presto, it roared into life.

I went back into the house and rang Mr WithaY again, telling him not to come home after all.

The farmer, his wife, and the landrover eventually left, allowing me to go back up to my study to get on with my work.

Five minutes later, Kevin the Decorator arrived.

Ten minutes after that, the phone downstairs rang, someone from Talk Talk who cut himself off, the fuckwit.  .

And so the long day wore on. 

Tomorrow I am going into London for some peace and quiet.

Cracking fun

It's been a week of trains.  Trains, trains, trains.  Interspersed with the Tube.

Things I have seen on my travels of late include:

Two very excited West Ham fans on the Tube.  As the journey progressed they donned more and more kit - hats, scarves, shirts.  By the time I got off they were eagerly examining one anothers tickets for the match, and talking loudly about what a great night they were about to have.  They both looked very young, and were clearly having the time of their lives.  One of them gave up his seat to a lady, which I thought was polite.  Although, now I think about it, she was very attractive, and neither of them gave up their seat to a much less attractive lady later in the trip.  So, maybe an ulterior motive there.

As an aside, I often see people offering up seats on the Tube.  It's less common to see someone ofering up a seat on the train out of Waterloo, but that would mean standing up for the bet part of an hour at least, so I can understand the reluctance. 

I saw this on Tuesday night.  A man got on the train at Salisbury and proceeded to eat his way through a whole pack of chocolate mini rolls.  I have seldom seen anyone get less enjoyment out of food; he looked as though it was an exercise in energy restoration and nothing else. 

If you look closely you will see the reflection of the naughty photographer in the window behind him. 

Heh.

I also took some pictures of Mr WithaY's crack.  So to speak.

It was HUGE.  It's all been fixed now, but it was exciting while it lasted. 

This one looks like an arty album cover. 

This one makes it look like we live in Bavaria.  We don't.

Other news:  I have been partaking of some Culture.  We watched The Hurt Locker the other weekend.  It was ok, felt more like a documentary than anything else, but without any kind of editorial focus.  I'm not sure why it won so many Oscars.  I didn't engage with any of the characters and thought it was far too long.  Maybe that was the point, I dunno.   

Also watched District 9 last weekend which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Much bleaker and sadder than I expected, and a lot more interesting to me.  I daresay that tells a story about my psyche, but frankly I don't give a rat's arse, amateur psychologists.  Ha!

A colleague lent me a book called Stasiland by Anna Funder which I read on the train, and thought it was excellent.  It's all about life behind the Berlin Wall.  The author is a lovely writer and a damn fine journalist. I recommend it. 

I'd love to go back to Berlin.  We lived there when I was little and went back for a visit a few years later when we went and looked at the Wall.  It made a big impression.

I am waiting for some v important paperwork to show up this week, and when it does I need to book Mr WithaY and I an appointment at the American Embassy.  Thanks to the SSFH* of last summer, we are no longer eligible for the Visa Waiver Programme, and need to get a tourist visa from the Embassy.  In person. 

So, $131 each for the interview (which is about £80), plus the cost of the train, plus £70 each (the cost of the Official Stuff from the police) on top of that...almost £300.  And if we want to go to Canada, or Australia or South Africa, or America again, we go through it all each time.

Thanks a lot, Police State UK (TM).

I'm still very angry about it all.  When I have stopped being so angry I might even blog about it, but not yet.  Too painful. 

Tra la laaaaaa. 

Still on the weight loss plan, but annoyingly have put a pound and a half back on, which is not the right way round.  I will stick with it though, I am determined to lose at least another stone before we go on holiday**. 

*Shit Storm From Hades

**Assuming we get a fucking visa, of course.  Gah. 

Hump day dump day

Ah, Wednesday. Known to some as Hump Day, according to the radio. Why? Are we all supposed to be out there humping people's legs like unruly dogs? I'm sorry, but I am simply not prepared to do that.

Plus it's raining really hard and I don't want to go out and get soaked.

In fact, it's been raining all day. Luckily for me I have not had to go out and walk around in it much. I popped out to the local garage this morning to get the be-beep key fob thingy for my car sorted out. It was becoming excitingly unpredictable, not unlocking (or indeed locking) the car on the first, second and sometimes seventh click of the button. I had nightmarish visions of getting off the train from London at 9pm one dark night and not being able to open the car, then having to walk all the way home, crying piteously.

So, a new battery seemed like a good idea.

They are lovely down there. They replaced the key fob battery and then refused to take any money for it, saying "We'll sort it out next time, love, don't worry about it." What nice people.

I then scooted to Morrisons and picked up a few groceries. Washing powder! Bleach! Onions! My life is a whirling fun-packed carousel of delight.

What else have I been doing lately? Apart from slowly getting myself back to what passes for normality, post SSFH*, I mean.

I spent Monday and Tuesday in Bristol, helping with a training/familiarisation course, which was interesting. Always nice to meet people who work in related but separate fields**.

There is a HUGE difference between the trains that go from my local station to Bristol, and the trains that go from my usual station to London. The people! My dears! Such dreadful, dreadful people!

I suppose the big difference is that the London train is stuffed to the gills with city types in suits, settling in for the 2-hour ride, reading their newspapers or working on their laptops quietly. They all have their usual seats (me included) and there is a degree of placid tranquil acceptance that we are all in it together. We simply chill out and tolerate the journey as best we may, each trying to be inconspicuous and productive. Well, I tend to play Scrabble and listen to loud rock music on my iPhone, but you get the picture.

The Bristol train, now, is a different kettle of fish. Indeed, the one on Monday smelt as though one of the many slack-jawed mouth-breathers crammed in there was actually carrying a kettle of fish. It was a dump.

The train was the same size as the London train***, but there were fewer seats, meaning that while those of us who had found somewhere to sit were not too cramped, there were many people forced to stand up for the duration of the journey. And they were bitching about it.

There were several people for whom the term "dangers of rural inbreeding" might have been coined. Four people sitting around a table had only 5 eyebrows between them. It wasn't pretty.

Anyhoo. People hop on and off all the time, only going one or two stops, so it's a constant stream of bags and coats whacking you as they shuffle past, knuckles dragging, personal steroes blaring, phones cheeping and chirping. Was worse than being in the cinema with a huge crowd of unruly teenagers.

Still, it took less than an hour and a half to get to work, and I was home before it was dark, which made a nice change.

Other news: Mr WithaY has been diligently practicing his didgeridoo since he got home from Egypt. I might make a recording and put it on here if I can work out the technology.




*Shit Storm From Hades
**Not like farmers, but in a professionally-related way
***Obviously

Cars. Again

Not mine or Mr WithaY's for a pleasant change.

No, my lovely guitar teacher's. He told me his was playing up, to the extent that he needs a new one. I asked what the problem was and he sent me a scary link to a load of stuff about the problem.

Apparently Peugeot 206s have a known fault where they can lose all power whilst you are driving along minding your own business.

So, picture the scene...you're tootling along in the outside lane on the M4 doing 70 and suddenly all your power cuts out. No power steering, no lights, no decent brakes.

Bloody terrifying.

Broken

Well, I feel like I have a cold now. Bloody great. Woke up with a sore throat and sniffed unattractively* through my meeting this morning. Lovely.

My lovely guitar teacher has fractured his hand (playing cricket, the careless idiot) so no lessons for me for a bit. And of course he can't play guitar either, so his band might be a bit grumpy too.

Other news: Mr WithaY's car seems to be improving slowly, but it is still too screechy and scary to drive any distance at at speeds of over 30mph, so I have been taking him to work and picking him up in the evenings. It's rather nice. Maybe we will car share more often. It takes me about an extra 10-15 minutes, but it means we save fuel, and I like us both getting home at the same time.

I have been smitten with a cooking bug (so to speak) and have been perusing recipe books for inspiration. I might make brownies later. Or soda bread. Or a pie. Can't decide. Will definitely be baked though. Unless it's soup.

Oh yes, we need some date recipes. The fruit, not the chronological things. Mr WithaY's runaway successs re: the quince chatroom makes me feel confident that we wil find something suitable.

Am listening to Rush "A Passage To Bangkok". Bloody great. Funny how you go through phases of liking stuff. And now it's The Sweet's "Hellraiser". All good desk-based music.



*I did have a tissue but sometimes you just have to sniff.

Hard sums

So, apart from my car being expensively broken, and me whining on and on and on about it, what else has been going on, you may be asking?

I like to imagine people are actually interested, you see.

Mr WithaY's Landrover is sat on the drive again, but is not really fixed. The axle he bought off the on-line scrappie is apparently a bit rubbish, the diff was full of water. It still makes a horrible screeching noise when he drives around, so he now thinks it might be a brakes-related issue rather than a diff-related issue.

Who knows? Not me, that's for sure. Any readers who have experience of Landrover Discovery-related problems, and have helpful advice to offer, please feel free.

Also, big news...saw a rat in the garden. Went to dump a load of stuff in compost bin #2** and as the lid was lifted off, saw the back end* of a rat scoot down a hole in the compost. Mr WithaY deployed some garden tools and a vigorous forking*** ensued.

Time to go and buy more poison.

Ooh, also, used my funky new peg bucket today. Spring really has sprung, the washing is out in the garden to dry.

Noticed this afternoon that the price of diesel in the garage over the way has gone up to 122.9 a litre. That's a rise of 3p in 2 days. Fuck's sake.

For the American readers out there, it is now costing me about £50 to fill my fuel tank, so that's what, about $100? And that gets me about 350 miles. Getting about is becoming very expensive. Had a chat with a lovely on-line mate the other night and he was grumbling becasue fuel now costs him $4 a gallon. Pah.

How much are we paying a gallon now? Um (mental arithmetic.....arrghh) 5 litres to the gallon, so, um, £1.22 x 5, so about £6 a gallon, so about what, $12 a gallon?

I am sure the maths wonks out there will set me right.



*I assume the front end had already gone.

** Compost bin #1 is almost ready. I'll keep you informed.

***Nothing like a vigorous forking in the garden on a nice afternoon, I think.

.

...and five pence

£2178. The final bill for my car. Oh, and five pence. I've had cars that cost me less than that to buy, never mind repair.

Fuck.

I wonder if I could have opted to not have that extra 5p worth of fixing to round it all off nicely.

I should get mine back any minute now. The very nice* people at the garage are dropping it round to my house this morning. I hope that this will be the last time it ever has to have anything like as much fixing done. I've only had the damn thing 2 years, and I bought it because I thought it would be really reliable and low-maintenance.

What a fool, what a crazy, stupid fool I was.

Ooh, just went to answer the door. My car is back. Yay! And they washed** it.

Right. Off to work. Be good.



*Well they would be, they have over 2 grand of my money

**Well, they would have, they have over 2 grand...etc

More car woes

Sorry to keep banging on about this, but it is looming large in my life at the moment.

Rang the garage just now to find out what time I can go and pick my car up, and they said "lunchtime tomorrow". So, all this "It will take 2 days, be ready late on Wednesday" stuff seems to have gone by the board.

Gah.

I rang a colleague who has very kindly agreed to come and pick me up tomorrow morning and take me into work. I will have to try and sort something out about getting to fucking Trowbridge tomorrow night. Mr WithaY is away, so he can't help. And his Landrover is still being given a new axle anyway.

My colleague lives miles in the wrong direction, so I can't really ask him to drop me up there.

Ah well, I shall have some lunch and watch some TV and maybe things will look better after that.

Bad news

Have had an answer from Toyota.

I am not getting anything from them towards the cost of a new clutch and flyweel, because my car is too old. It is less than a month over 5 years old, but that means that it is not covered by the extended warranty.

So that's my bad luck.

I will drop it off at the garage tonight and a very kind neighbour is picking me up from there on his way home from work. Hopefully Mr WithaY's Landrover will be fixed by the time I have to go and pick mine up again.

Lord it's complicated when there's hardly any public transport.

The flies.....

Arse.

Yes, arse.

I have to get my car to the Toyota garage in Trowbridge tomorrow after work, and then find a way to get home again. In the meantime, Mr WithaY's new axle for his Landy should be winging its way to the local garage from some breakers yard, so his truck is obviously off the road until that is all sorted.

Honestly. Two huge vehicles to our names and we will still be struggling to get me home from Trowbridge.

Arse.

The more research I do into the whole "crap clutch and flywheel" debacle, the more depressing it becomes. It's a huge and endemic problem, it seems. Roll on hydrogen power, that's all I can say.

I have been driving around in diesel cars for at least 15 years because I believed that they:

a) were more economical on fuel when you do a lot of miles
b) lasted longer than petrol engines
c) were less expensive to maintain

Ha. That's all bollocks then. My Rav4 does about 35 miles to the gallon (although I have got huge chunky tyres on it, which drags down the average), it is going to need MAJOR repair work next week even though it's only 5 years old, and that will cost me not very much less than £2,000 all told.

Shows how much I know about cars. Maybe I should look for a new job.

On a less whiny note, we went out for a Chinese in town last night with some mates from the village, which was great fun. Mr WithaY was presented with a fantastic hi-tech electro fly-swat thingy as a birthday gift, which he is very excited about trying out.

It looks like a small tennis racquet, but it's electrified. How great is that, eh? It's like a Wii for people who hate flies. Maybe I should get one too and we can have matches.

We are rather troubled by flies here. Not because we are stinky peeeegs (although we are, naturally) but because we live fairly close to several dairy farms. Coo shite attracts cluster flies, which then come and sit on the cosy south-facing walls of all the nearby houses, including ours, snuggling down into the window frames for Winter. Bastards.

Other news: I am spending a cosy morning transferring all my music from my laptop to the new PC. It's quite interesting seeing the difference in speed between the 2 machines. It took me about 45 minutes to transfer a huge stack of albums to a data stick, and then about 4 minutes to upload them onto the new machine. Aaah technology.

Cars

Are nothing but trouble.

Mr WithaY is currently on his way home (on his birthday, just to add insult to injury) with his beloved Landrover on the back of a repair truck.

All the way from Devon. Apparently the diffs were making a scary noise, and he called the rescue people, who told him not to try and drive it, hence the rescue truck.

So, his car is into the garage this afternoon. Mine is off to the Toyota garage in Trowbridge next Tuesday.

I am going to drive into town now to get some stuff for dinner tonight. Our mate Owen is coming over for the evening. Wish me luck.

I assume I will get back, but if not, it's been emotional.

Wrath

...of God weather, that's what we are having today. Charming.

Well, it seems that Toyota are not prepared to cough up anything towards the huge bill I am now landed with. I spoke to their customer services people today and ended up asking for the name and address of the relevant manager. There's no point getting cross with the people who answer the phones, really.

I shall write to him and explain how I feel about this, and see if I get a reply. They are inconsistent with the reasons for not offering any kind of goodwill gesture towards helping with the bill.

Sometimes it's because my car is too old, then it's because my car is too late a model and has already been fitted with the fixed flywheel, sometimes it's because of the mileage I have done. I am not sure they have any kind of consistent policy on this at all.

Anyhoo, I have booked it in to get everything fixed next week. Fingers crossed it lasts me till then.

Other news: Bought a new PC after work tonight. I was so hacked off that I decided to cheer myself up by spending yet more money I don't have.

Sound fiscal policy, I think you'll agree.

It has graphics and everything. I think I scared the lad in the shop though. He came sauntering up and asked me if he could help with anything, so I told him what I wanted. He took me to the PC section and pointed at the most expensive one, and said "I think that's what you want." I asked him what the processing power was like.

"3 MB madam," he said, pointing proudly at the little notice.

I said no, that's the RAM. What type of processor does it have? How many GHz?

He went and fetched someone else to deal with me after that.

Ah well, got it up and running and connected up to the interweb. Just need to get all my iTunes onto it now.

And photos.

And Favourites.

But otherwise, it's perfect.

Off to London again tomorrow. Joy.

Things...

...just get better and better.

I need a new PC as well now. My laptop, which has always been crap graphics-wise is finally unable to cope with what I need it to do. So. Off to PC World after work tomorrow to see how much a PC with a decent graphics capability will cost.

Arse.

Still no word from Toyota. I will ring them tomorrow to find out what they are going to do (if anything) and then book my car in to get it fixed anyway. Sod's law says that if I leave it, the flywheel will come winging off where it's supposed to be, destroy the clutch, knacker the engine, blow a hole in the bonnet, and, given my track record, probably take my head off in passing as it flies into the hedge.

I laughed (briefly) at work on Friday. I fell into conversation with the boss of the team I work with as we walked to the building from the car park,and I told him all about my car-related woes. He thought for a few moments, then said "Have you told Toyota what you do for a living?"*

Funnily enough, the very same though had occurred to me as I drove back from the garage on Thursday. I decided (reluctantly) that it would probably amount to gross professional misconduct if I mentioned it in a "Oh by the way....aaaaand NOW how helpful do you plan to be, exactly?" kind of way.

But it amused me that the boss thought of it too.

Other news: Have done some more gardening over the weekend, in between torrential hail showers. Moved my Japanese anemone from the slightly odd place in the middle of the lawn where it got planted originally, and am hoping it survives. Mr WithaY and I also shifted all the logs and branches off the lawn from last weekend when our lovely foresting neighbour came round and chainsawed a tree down for us**.

Have been fairly dull and domestic this weekend. Mr WithaY is much better but still coughing a lot, so we've had a quiet couple of days at home.

We watched "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" on TV last night, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Also saw "Memento" the other weekend, with Guy Pearce. I mean, he was in it, he didnt come round to watch it with me***. Anyhoo, it was a very entertaining film to watch, reminded me a bit of "The Usual Suspects" or "Pulp Fiction" in the way it kept chopping and changing the timeline. But I like that. And Mr Pearce is always worth looking at.

Maybe my premium bond will come up. Fingers crossed.

*Suffice to say it relates to vehicles.

**We asked him to. He didn't just turn up and start demolishing the garden.

***He never does, no matter how many times I write and invite him.