A weekend away (by sarah)

Ok this post has been hanging around to long now - I will endevour to sort phots out later - this is going live like it or not!

Two weekends ago now lots of fun stuff happened which never got blogged about due to the 'jinx' stuff so I thought I'd best catch up on writting about it 🙂

First off there was Thursday, after the business stuff was done and sealed in London, we went to Charlee's perants house to meet up with her and Andy as me and Jean hadnt made it into zone one due to the heat! This was a very pleasant evening were I got given a wonderful purple top with sparkly beads and got to take photos of more cats! Plus I was impressed with the techno garden set up 🙂

Jean really loved it 🙂

Friday was the Front Wire Summer party in Guilford - so off me and Al went to that, it was another nice day with the added bonus of the trapoline!

I found some strange statues in the garden called Paul, Al and Seth!

I was very happy at this party surrounded by geeks doing sport!

Saturday saw us in Romford market buying stupid quantities of bombay mix! as we havent found anywhere that even comes near the fruit and nut stall. We also bought all the prizes for the village feast tomboler whilst we were at it. Then off into London again to meet up with people - a loo stop at Ikea which closes at midnight! resulted in me getting the alien rainbow knives, forks and spoons I saw at the beginning of the pregnancy and wanted to wean Jean with 🙂 I still cant imagine who would desperatly need furniture at 11 at night though?!

Sunday saw my Dad's thing at Rainham Methodist church were Jean made some friends! Followed by a flyby visit to more friends and a charity tea and cake session. (sorry this is probably boring to anyone whos not family). Then of course we picked Mini up and had a lovely everning with Earl and Rime - they have a great roof space where you can see loads of London with funky pigeons and pipes everywhere 🙂

Libertarianism (by alaric)

I just came across this in a text file while cleaning up an old home directory prior to deletion, so thought I'd put it up here...

It occurs to me that we do live in a libertarian world. At the global level, there is no higher level of government; all nations are free, limited only by their own desire to not invoke their neighbour's wrath. Organisations like the UN are voluntary, and have to bargain or impose sanctions to get their will followed, rather than being able to impose.

What does this mean? Read more »

Learning to drive (by alaric)

It's been many months since I passed my driving test now, but as my instructors had warned me, you never stop learning to drive.

You see, in order to pass the test you have to be a super-perfect driver; you need to think carefully about everything, and follow precise procedures, because that's what the examiners want to see.

Then you start driving around "for real", with passengers talking to you, having to think about your route rather than being told to take the next left. Driving starts to happen automatically, without thought.

This is why new drivers are prone to crashing, and have to pay more for their car insurance... Read more »

Hooray for working at home! (by alaric)

The cats aren't meant to get into my office, since I have desks laden with delicate electronic circuits with long cables that dangle down, but somehow Minnie snuck in there - because this morning, as I was sitting at my desk, she appeared beside me and meowed while looking up expectantly. I patted my lap, and she jumped up, made herself comfortable, and lay down to purr.

That's not something you normally get while working in an office, is it?

Despite the well-known stress-relief properties of a purring cat on your lap... If I ever set up an office, I'll make sure I get non-cat-allergic employees and have an office cat or two!

But, alas, not where I'm trying to do electronic circuit development.

It never ends! (by alaric)

Indeed, it gets worse.

Remember we're borrowing Sarah's parent's car because ours' brakes failed?

Well, it keeps running hot - the coolant temperature gauge was getting alarmingly high when driving in town traffic. So before going out today I tried to find the bonnet release to check the water level. We don't have the car's manual, or a Haynes manual for it, so we had to search about as best we could, to no avail. We rang Sarah's parents, but just left a message on the answerphone, so we went out shopping. As long as I took routes that maximised time on dual carriageways so the speed kept up, the temperature would be fine. At that point, I was suspecting the cooling fan may be at fault.

However, the car started to make nasty grinding sounds when I dropped into neutral at traffic lights (it's an automatic). So we pulled over, and rang Sarah's parents again; this time we got through, and they explained where the bonnet release was (it was where I'd first looked for it - but a bit tucked away!). Popping that open, I found that it was quite low on transmission fluid, but it was too hot to check the water level; the tank was too opaque to see the level without opening it, which would be dangerous without waiting for the engine to cool down.

So we went off walking to find a petrol station to buy more transmission fluid, and some water in case the water level was low when we came back and opened it. The first petrol station we came to had one of those little Tescos on it, which was useless - it had aisles and aisles of food, and a few shelves of very basic car supplies; engine oil and lightbulbs.

So we journeyed on to a 'proper' petrol station which had a tiny shop, a good eighth of which was full of useful car stuff, including automatic transmission fluid. I picked that up, plus three litres of water, since Sarah was hot and thirsty.

Back to the car. Put 200ml of transmission fluid in, opened the water, and found the expansion tank totally empty.

Doh.

In goes just over a litre of water, and it was up to the MAX level. So we drive on. The car now doesn't make any nasty noises when going into neutral, and seems to be running a bit better in general.

With all these delays, we're now having to rush straight to the nursery to pick Jean up; but on the way, the temperature gauge keeps creeping up again, and when we have to go into the little 30mph roads towards the end, it approaches the red warning section and a steamy hissing whistle emerges from under the bonnet. We pull up at the nursery, picking Jean up just as the staff are starting to go home, and sit and wait while the engine cools down enough to open the water expansion tank again.

When I check, I find it empty once more. I suspect that it may have been REALLY low on water; when I filled it up before, there was lots of bubbling as air worked its way up through the system and came forth, so perhaps the litre I put in was only filling the expansion tank because of trapped air, and running the engine had cycled it around. So I fill it up again, run the engine a bit (you have to do this to check the transmission fluid level, which I do), and the water's still there. I check underneath the car to make sure it's not leaked out.

And so we drive on. But the car's not happy. The transmission is a little odd, with the car 'twitching' every now and then, or shifting down a gear for half a second every now and then. And the temperature still rises alarmingly. So we pull over into a pub near our house, and leave it cooling down while Sarah runs to the toilet (she'd been holding it in for a while now) and we have some dinner; since not having been home between shopping and picking Jean up, we've not been able to get dinner started.

So after a while I go out again, and lo and behold, the expansion tank is again empty. I top it up again, but this time I'm rewarded with a wet trickling sound, and the water level in the tank goes down before my eyes. At the same time, a puddle emerges from beneath the car.

Bugger.

Further peering down inside reveals that I can see water running down the back of the engine, although its source is hidden in shadow and obscured by engine parts. It might be a hose (easily fixed), a "core plug" that protects the engine from coolant overpressure or freezing by popping out to release the pressure (easily fixed) or a crack in the engine block (written off car). Either way, it may be hard to diagnose without lifting the engine out, since the leak seems to be on the back of the engine.

We carefully drive it home, downhill all the way keeping the revs as low as I can. Tommorrow, Sarah's parents come up in our van, ostensibly to drive home in their car and leave the van with us. But there's no way their car's going to be ready to drive all the way back to Essex unless we fix it over the weekend. And if Sarah's parents go home in our van because their car is dead - we'll have trouble getting Jean to and from nursery...