Oct 11

Life is a Rollercoaster…

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….I’m with Ronan Keating on that one…

A long time since my last post I know - so much has been going on, not least of which the last exams of my AAT course which, despite much worrying on my part, I did end up passing.  I had felt so un-prepared for one of the skills test that I was convinced that I would struggle to pass - and in fact it took me about three goes to get that one, but I did it in the end!  I have no idea how I managed to take all those exams in such a short period when I was at school, this last one was enough to have me so worried I was struggling to deal with it at the time.  Good news in the end though, and I am now embarked, for better or worse, on the final stage of the AAT course that could see me manage to get letters after my name.

What else has been happening?  Well the rollercoaster at the moment also includes preparation for WASH 2009, the flagship party weekend of Plus.  As a committee it may be that we have a very difficult decision to make after this years event, and the last few weeks leading up to it are not going to be easy for us I suspect.   Usually I can remain fairly positive whilst some of the others panic, despite the fact I am a natural pessimist, I am also a hopeful one - this year I’m struggling to find any reassurance to offer the others - still we are having hopeful moments only to get another kick in the teeth it seems.  Its so difficult for us all to cope with such ups and downs in such a short timespan and at the end of the day, only time will tell.

Work is busy as ever, I’m gaining responsibilities and work, but not an increase in wages unfortunately….something I don’t think is likely to change soon.  But at least I do have a job which at this time I do have to remind myself sometimes to be grateful for, as so many others have nothing.

There has been work on the cars, brakes on both the 2CV and the Smart.  The 2cv needed complete new rear brake pipes and shoes, installed with a lot of help from my dad, the Smart just went to the local garage for front brake pads - surprisingly only costing around £60 - I like those sort of surprises!

The most recent highlight was the Scalextric weekend which I organised - the second year of running now, a few more people, and such a fun event - made easier for me by the helpfulness of the landlord of the pub which we treat as our local even though it is about 20mins drive away!

I think the pictures will speak for themselves, so enough from me rabbiting on for now…

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Apr 11

Project 52 - Week 34

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Apr 07

Who says the world isn’t flat…..

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Ok - maybe its not, but my part of it certainly had its share of flat bits at the weekend.

A trip out on Saturday proved not to achieve much of what it was set out to - to buy a new hedge trimmer (to replace the one I broke!), to do a bit of geocaching, and to buy some groceries - out of those, only the grocery shopping got done, and that because we were stuck for so long at Asda.

We got close to buying the hedge trimmer, but decided to do the geocaching bit before checking out prices at other DIY stores once we had decided which one we wanted.  Before that, a cup of drink and some cake at a department store - that probably was the high point of the afternoon.  A short drive out took us through a housing estate full of speed bumps - oh joy - and ended at a private road along which we could gain no access to the geocache - should have checked out the parking beforehand on Google Earth.  We decided to come back another day when we had more time and do it properly, and returned through the housing estate (speedbumps) back into Boston.  At that point the guy in the car behind us who had been flashing and hooting got out of his car at traffic lights and approached us - I didn’t realise I’d done anything to provoke road rage, but it turned out he wanted to tell me I had a flat tyre - great.  I continued my drive to Asda garage, where I tried to pump the tyre up and could actually hear the air hissing back out again almost as quickly as I was pumping it in.  Smart cars are too small to carry a spare (no room!) and the repair kit was missing one important part so a call to the RAC eventually (and this is where the extended shopping time came in!) resulted in a recovery vehicle to take us home.

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Trying to find new tyres for a Smart on a Saturday evening/Sunday is not easy - no-one appears to keep any in stock - but I found via the internet that Kwik Fit do a mobile service, so once the tyres were available they would come out to fit them, rather try and fit two (yes two)  wheels into the Roadster (even less space!) to take into town.  I am guessing that the previous owner of the Smart had left the car standing for long periods and that is what damaged the tyres, helped by a more than generous helping of speedbumps.  The other rear tyre had deflated by the next morning too.

 

Did I mention that the slight leak on the brakes on the 2cv had turned into more of a stream while it has been standing over the winter?  I found this out as I was making sure it would start in preparation for Monday morning.  Another car out of action.  We own four cars between us…..and only have one on the road - another job to sort!

Anyway, as I write this, I have spent half the day waiting for Kwik Fit to appear - for the last two days I have been getting up at 6.15am, driving Stephen 20 miles to work, then driving myself 40 miles in the opposite direction to get myself to work - repeat for home time.    I got a phone call about 40 mins before the latest time they would appear saying that they had someone off sick and wouldn’t reach me today - whoopee!  To say I wasn’t impressed was an understatement  - I had already managed to put off a deadline at work until tomorrow morning, only for Kwik Fit to say “we can do it tomorrow morning, is that any good?”!  The result?  somehow I convinced them to come and do the car before 8.15 in the morning - fingers crossed this time tomorrow I should have a working Smart again - and I will be re-negotiating the price I am paying too!

So….at the moment my world is flat, but hopefully soon to be rectified!

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Mar 11

Shoreham

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Its been ages since I’ve been down to Shoreham to visit family (last time was Christmas) and as I don’t go down there as often as I’d like to, I jumped at the chance of combining a visit to the Smart garage in Guildford to finally get the promised cruise control fitted to the car with a stay at my brother’s place and a weekend of madness with two very energetic little boys and their parents!

The cruise control fitting left me wandering around Guildford for about 3 hours, killing time, in which I discovered, firstly, that a lot of the shops are well out of my price range, secondly that Starbucks make a very nice White Mocha coffee (yum!), thirdly, and unfortunately far too late, that Guildford has a branch of Oxfam dedicated to books/videos DVDs (great for killing time!), and lastly that I would be grateful of the cruise control after spending three hours walking around the town with a dodgy foot!  I got the call and returned to the garage, and was left sitting in the showroom while my car was collected from the workshop - ignore the phone they said, as if I would be tempted to answer it!  At least I got some time to start reading the book I bought from Oxfam, almost a disappointment when my car arrived back.  Car done, it was time to head down to Shoreham.

For once my timing was perfect, I arrived at Shoreham just in time for lunch, and my ego was plumped up just a bit when I heard two young boys shouting for Auntie Christine to come sit next to them - its nice to be in demand!

The rest of the weekend was hectic and quite noisy, being woken up in the morning with a rubber centipede dangling over your face is an interesting experience, but then I guess thats what you get for buying young boys rubber centipedes in the first place!  One of the best bits of the weekend was the weather on Saturday being good enough to go sit for quite some time on the breakwater rocks on Shoreham beach while the boys played, and soak up the piece and quiet of the beach at this time of year.  Very pretty it was too, although as I was taking photos almost directly into the sun and couldn’t view the screen very well it seems I took all the landscape photos a bit crooked!

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Jan 23

Car Audio/Project 52, week 22

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After months of driving the 2cv with no radio, I thought it was probably a good idea to put my super dooper car radio with USB input and play from memory stick capability into the Smart to replace the standard Smart radio/cassette.  It was supposed to be put back into the 2cv at some point, but I will probably use it more in the Smart anyway.

The radio went in, but sounded a bit odd - Corinne Bailey Rae sounded like she was singing underwater, although surprisingly Guns & Roses sounded perfectly ok….new speakers were needed.  Not as easy as it sounds, as there is limited room for replacement speakers, and the doors are so long, and my legs so short that to put speakers in the doors would have put one behind my seat - not ideal!  In the end we settled for some speakers and speaker boxes from Smart that fit under the dashboard where the old ones are, and separate tweeters, and set about installing them.

It was very cold…..and it took most of a weekend….brrrr.  Little did we know that routing the wiring from the tweeters in the door panels into the back of the radio would involve taking off all of the front outside panels of the car!  Certainly sounds better now though, and now I have a car that is has warm seats, few rattles and an audible sound system without CDs.

So, picture of the week for Project 52?  The reason for the terrible sound - can you believe the size of these speakers that came out of the car:

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Jan 21

Project 52, Week 18

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Jan 08

Cars

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One of the things that has taken up a lot of out time recently is sorting out the aftermath of having been crunched by a 4×4.  The insurance claim went quite smoothly, with the settlement cheque received about a week and a half before Christmas, which left us a few little problems to sort out.

The first problem was that the insurance company didn’t want to keep the car, so deducted the expected salvage value from the settlement and left us to get it transported back home and find some way of disposing of it.  As I write, it is still sitting in the drive…..although it may have a buyer in a couple of weeks time (fingers crossed).  The second was arranging for the new (to us) car to be bought and picked up - which was further complicated by the frame of mind I was in after the accident concerning use of the 2CV during the winter.

After the crunch I was forced to think more about how I use the 2cv - it has been my main car since we moved to the middle of nowhere over 4 years ago, getting constant use driving backwards and forwards to work in all weathers, gathering salt from the roads in the winter, and generally suffering more wear and tear than I would like, given the amount of time/money/effort spent on it in the past.  Had I been driving that car at the time of the accident, firstly I would have been probably rather more worse off physically, and secondly (strangely more important to me, I obviously have rather odd priorities) had it been that car which was written off it wouldn’t have been so easy to replace/repair again.  The thing about modern cars is that even if they are unusual, generally they are more easily replaced.

So (yes I know it is bad grammer to start a sentance with the word “so”) after a bit of thought, I came to the conclusion that what I needed was a modern car for winter use to preserve the 2cv a bit.   Also I am getting a bit fed up of being so cold in the car that a thick coat, hat and gloves are advisable.  Of course, it couldn’t be any old modern car - I’m not good with conformity - I decided to buy a Smart ForTwo in Numeric Blue (special edition body panels).  The real selling point was the electric heated seats…..

As it happens, we saw both the Numeric Blue Smart and a replacement Roadster (a Bluewave special edition) at the same garage - a visit was made to Guildford to view, and a commitment made to buy both.  This is where Stephen’s bargaining skills came into play, and some of the headaches began……but to tell all about that would just bore everyone, so suffice to say there have been delays.

We were hoping to pick both cars up before Christmas but as it turned out only the Roadster was ready, as the hire car had to be returned the Monday before Christmas that was an essential.  The part we were waiting for for my car still hadn’t arrived before Christmas so I arranged to pick the car up without it and return another time for it to be fitted (cruise control).  Unfortunately the Roadster developed a fault with the gearbox sensors/computer fairly quickly after we got it home, so what actually happened between Christmas and New Year was that we picked one car up, and took the other back!  We are currently still waiting for the Roadster to be ready to be returned (one failed attempt at returning already when the fault resurfaced on the motorway) and in the meantime I am still freezing my bits of in the 2CV on the way to work and back each day….hope this cold weather doesn’t last too long…..

Ah - nearly forgot - photo:

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Dec 08

Project 52 - Week 14

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Week 14 was supposed to be a photo from the Santa Run, wasn’t intending to use one like this but, oh well!!  Its a bit shaky, but then so was I!!

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Nov 25

Santa, Snow, and a Shogun

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Sunday should have been the day I took part in the Kings Lynn Santa Run to help raise money for “EACH” (East Anglian Children’s Hospices).  We awoke to the sound of sleet on the window, looked outside and everything was starting to turn white.   As the time to leave for the run came closer, things got whiter and real snow started falling - I wasn’t particularly relishing the thought of going out for a run in the snow, but got into the car and headed off.  I took the Smart, coz it had lovely heated seats….

I didn’t quite make it to the Santa Run, in fact I didn’t make it very far at all.  Slowing for a sharp corner on the snowy country roads I noticed a large 4 x 4 coming round in the opposite direction slightly faster than I would have liked - when I say coming round the corner, in fact what happened is that it only turned part way before it started sliding in my direction.  There was that moment of inevitability where you just know there is nothing you can do to avoid a situation, then a crunch and an inflation of airbags like an explosion in a marshmallow factory and the car filled with smoke.

Scary is the only word for it.  Shaken and stired, I managed to open the door of the car but didn’t seem to manage to move to get out of it for some time.  Then I found that I had hurt my foot, although as the snow cooled things down it sort of dumbed it enough to walk ok.  The guy who hit me drove me back home after pulling the Smart well off of the road - a small panic attack on the way as in my opinion he was still driving too fast in the snow and I envisaged sliding on another corner.  Details were exchanged, RAC called to remove the car, and then a chauffeur driven trip in the 2cv to casualty to sort out the bits that hurt.  Result is, after x-ray, no broken foot (thank god!), no neck/shoulder damage either, although i certainly hurt in all of thoses places, plus a lovely bruise is appearing thanks to the seatbelt.  I left casualty with crutches as once the foot thawed out it hurt like hell and hopping was the only way of getting about.

The next day was spent sorting out insurance, loan car etc., and gave time for all the bits that seemed ok the day before to start aching - feeling like I’d seriously overdone things at the gym.  Two days later and things are slightly better, walking again and shortly to attempt a drive to college in the loan car before trying the heavier pedals in the 2CV to get to work tomorrow.  The car isn’t faring quite so well, possibly to be written off by the insurers - we’ll have to wait and see.

Guess it could have been a lot worse……I could have changed into the Santa suit before I left home…

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