Plan B (by alaric)

I've hired a car to take up to the Lake District this weekend.

A Peugeot 308 with 350 miles on the clock that smells of new, picked up in London Euston, drop off in Gloucester, four days, for £166 from Avis at zero notice and with nothing more than a debit card and a clean licence with the same name on and a photo that matches my face - not bad at all. 1car1 was offering £200 for the same thing, but I'd need a utility bill, which by some miracle I don't happen to normally carry with me!

The van will stay here until I return next week and then I'll transport it to a place of fixing.

I broke the van! (by alaric)

While in London with the van, I had to deliver a server to a data centre - (InterXion London)[http://www.datacentermap.com/united-kingdom/london/interxion-london.html]. There's parking at the DC, but it's £20 to park a van there, so I decided to try and get into the car park marked just north of it on the map, in Quaker Street.

While I could find the car park, I couldn't find the way in - I could see cars all parked behind a fence, but no sign of the entrance. But while navigating the narrow little roads, I had to turn around in Grey Eagle Street:

View Larger Map

The road was narrow, only a single track, but with a wide pavement, so I opted for a three point turn. I turned hard right to bring the front of the van up onto the pavement, and the right wheel went up, but then I heard a grinding scraping noise. I was a bit surprised to be bottoming out on a not-particularly-high kerb, but I reversed back and found a place further down with a dropped kerb (but less pavement, since there was a car parked up there) to turn.

However, I noticed that my steering was suddenly a bit funny. I had to hold the wheel at about seventy degrees left to drive in a straight line. And the suspension felt odd - I could feel every little stone in the road, and if I went over even the slightest bump, I heard a funny creaking sound.

BAD NEWS!

After a quick check for visible signs of damage as soon as I had parked (none), I did the business of the evening, and then drove carefully back to Highgate for a closer look.

I parked with the wheel perfectly straight, then got out and looked at both wheels.

Here's the left one, pointing nice and straight ahead:

And here's the right one... pointing twenty or so degrees to the right:

Looks like the tracking's totally out, then.

And by the scientific method of placing my hand in the gap between top of tyre and wheel arch then holding it still while I walk around and try on the other side, the right hand side seems an inch or so lower than the left, too.

And all this when I'm supposed to be doing a five-hour drive up motorways tomorrow evening. Eeek.

I'm going to see if I can find a place to look at my tracking and suspension first thing tomorrow... but I'm dreading what it'll cost, and doubting I'll get it fixed the same day...

A tail of two cats (by sarah)

I have received two messaged whilst being in London this week about the cats back at the Mill - Poor Betsy, Barbara's old black cat who looks like Minnie, our black cat, was off colour - not eating and the such like but still purring away and sitting merrily by the fire. Just to make sure she was fine they took her to the vets and it turned out that the strange coughing she was doing wasn't hair balls but lung cancer 🙁

So Betsy is no more :'(

They buried her this morning and Al says he took Jean to see her to explain but not overly labour the point. Jean initially asked when Betsy would wake up. It was explained she wouldn't - Jean has apparently spent the day mulling this fact over.

The second cat message is on a slightly lighter note - Mystery Cat was harassing one of the kittens so Alaric picked him up and tried to throw him gently to the other side of the stream so he'd have to walk to a way to get back to where the kitten was cowering up a tree. However Alaric slipped and accidentally dropped the poor cat into the stream - it instantly leaped out and instead off running away padded wet and miserable over to Alaric - meowed pathetically and rubbed up againt him - just to make sure he felt completely responsible and guilty.

Alaric was mortified - my dad is always threatening to trebuchet the cats Mystery Cat so he has named Alaric the Cat Soaker!

Al feels very guilty.

From South Africa to Gloucestershire (by sarah)

Alaric's Dad Lionel and his step-mother Lynne are currently over from South Africa where they live. They arrived in depested darkest Gloucestershire last night and for Lionel it is a return to the place he was brought up. Tonight we made them a three course meal along with Barbara - this is the first formal entertianing we have done since moving back into the house after the flood.

So I brought out the table cloths and napkins and the nice butterfly napkin rings David and Michelle got us at Christmas. We made yummy lentil cakes with sage in - yesturday Alaric made some of the same lentil cakes with what he thought was the coriander but it turned out he doesn't actually know the difference between my lovage plants and coriander - he thought the lovage were lemon corriander and thats why it tasted odd :/ - still both types of lentil cakes were good 🙂

They sat upon a bed of salad from the garden and we had various dips. We then had ground nut stew cook using the cabbages from the garden (well what were left off them due to this years cattipillar uinfestation). Desert was home-made yogurt and local honey with hazel nuts (I'm afraid these were bought as Jean had eaten the ones from the hedge row I'd gathered.).

The interesting thing to note was Jean's interactions with Lionel - her langage was completely different from how she speaks to dad - eg:

To Dad, 'Ferfer nut?'

To Lionel, 'Grandfather would you like a nut?'

I thought this comparison was very interesting as was the fact she called him grandfather when Al had introduced him as Granddad but Lynne had said Grandfather. I think little bobble has worked out that you can interact differently depending on whats expected of you!

Anyway I did take a photo of the Snells but haven't got round to uploading it yet - I will also shortly be sorting out my cooking blog which I will link to so that you can see the recipies etc... of the fabled lentil cakes!

Worrying about Money the Future and Everything (by sarah)

Having been given the all clear from the Dr about six months ago I informed the college of this and wondered if three years was a bit too long a time to just go back. I didn't hear anything and I sent a few more emials then I get an email saying there should be no problem with me going back but I still don't have a start date and it is the middle of September and I know the course begins in September.

Also in order to be ready for this we have put Jean in nursery for two extra days aweek. We had been told that the government pay for nursery stuff once your child is three. However, the way the system works is almost as if it is designed to unhelpful in the extreme. It turned out they only pay a set quoter of hours which would be equivolent to three sessions - so say three mornings or a day and a half for us. They also will not give that too you in a chunk - oh no so if your child only goes in for say two days they slash the number of hours they will pay for - this renders the whole thing useless for mothers trying to say get a part time job and leaves us with a slight problem - ie half a days fees to find.

We are still paying off the debts that accumulated from me being sick, the move and now the flood. We are also now paying a second gardener for Barbara as Al has to spend so much time in London. I have grown most of our veg this year which has slashed the food bill but that isn't really our main out going.

I have had a huge dilemer to face - I've been making websites and working for a small publisher but these contracts are about to end and I need more money but am going to (hopefully) be doing an MRes two days a week. I've been trying to find a job I can do (medical restraints) on say Mondays and Fridays and possibly Wednesdays but am failing. I think I might have found another web contract but its being slow. This is pretty much my last chance to go back to Geology and I worked so hard for it in the first place I just cant face losing it.

I'm not sure what on earth I'm going to do and haven't really got time or energy to worry about it all. At the moment I am going with the flow knowing that I may have a mother about to go through more radiotherapy and other older people relying on us due to medical issues.

Al is feeling the strain aswell, I am probably doing the wornge thing but if I don't at least try to do my course again I feel that I shall be a non-person. Oh ok I'm being selfish and horrible and stuff and over all I'm scared I'm taking gambles here but I can't see anything else to do where I wont go insane.