Ducks!!! (by sarah)

I think we have a malard couple nesting just behind the house!!! 🙂

The Drake always flys away noisily when I open the window to put more seeds and nuts out for the birds - mmm they probably dont realise I can see female hiding in the reeds - oh well! 🙂

MOT (by alaric)

Well, the car passed its MOT, despite needing to have various bits of suspension-related mechanism replaced (nearside front MacPherson strut and rear wheel bearing), and a hole in the exhaust piping.

Although it seemed better at first, it's still a bit stuttery when started from cold. It no longer seems to stall when the brake is applied, so the general tuning and servicing probably helped a bit (carburettor adjustment?) - and I've found that running it for a minute or two when first started, then bringing it up to 4000RPM for a second or two, makes it then run smoothly. It also runs on a little after stopping; it's been suggested that these two things are both due to buildups of carbon in the cylinders.

So I'm considering finding some of that stuff you can put in that eats it all away, but I'm also mindful that the carbon layer may be compensating for two decades of cylinder/piston wear, so it might not be such a great idea...

Perhaps I should just replace the engine with an oil-fired Tesla turbine, with a Stirling engine to recover waste heat - both feeding generators, with electrical transmission to individual wheel motors via a compulsator energy reservoir for sudden acceleration, and to power the coaxial railgun.

Wildlife (by sarah)

To my delight a Kingfisher has started eating from our bird table!!!!! I have yet cuaght it with the camera yet - nor the hare I saw bounding across the field the springs in (this was yesturday and I saw it from the bedroom window!!!).

I did however take photos of the turkey that was wobbling about 🙂

Jean loves not only watching the fire! but also I have found she is a keen ornithologist and spends agaes looking at the bird table just outside our window - she loved it even more when big fluffy white stuff was sailing past 🙂

Talking of which not only did she roll herself over yesturday but she held and eat her half rusk by herself on Monday!

Oh and of course I did pancakes yesterday!!!

Baby Abseiling (by alaric)

We spent Sunday tidying cleaning the house. Well, that was the plan, but we ended up only doing downstairs, and then with a few little things left over... I'd hoped Jean would be entertained by the sight of us zooming around her wielding dusting flicks and carrying things, but alas, she demanded a lot of our time through the day.

Anyway, tidying did have some fun for Jean - since we had her in her baby bouncer in the middle of the room, and I was dealing with a stack of storage boxes, we gave her a taste of abseiling:

This kept here interested for a bit. With the harness holding her upright and taking her weight, she could scrabble against the stack of boxes and practice her developing self-mobility skills.

In fact, this morning, she flopped forwards from where we'd sat her up on some cushions. She wailed in frustration, but then her flailing arm caught the side of her baby-gym thing, and she managed to push herself upright again. She then proceeded to grin from ear to ear!

I passed my driving test! (by alaric)

This is good.

As somebody who lives a good twenty minute's walk from a bus stop from which an hourly bus runs (until 5:30pm) to the nearest train station, six miles away, not being able to drive has been a bit of an issue so far.

The quality of our lives should now increase dramatically 🙂 We can go out and do things in the evenings, after work! We can go to places that aren't on the bus route! We can nip to the post office during the day in perhaps half an hour end to end, rather than waiting for the hourly bus, going to the PO, and then waiting 40 minutes for the bus back!

droooooooooooool