bunn

Yesterday as I was coming home from the morning dog walk, Helga Saab started to make an alarming wheezing groaning noise, and then she went PING, and I realised that her engine temperature gauge was right up in the red.   I pulled her out of the road, and peered into her engine, which did indeed feel very warm.  In fact she seemed to have no coolant left in her tank at all, which was odd because I check that regularly as the sensor that should report upon it is knackered.
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Maybe with one of those huge black SERIOUS looking cameras that announce so loudly 'I Am a Photographer' that you can shove them in people's faces.  Or possibly, just lurking behind bushes with my normal camera and charcoal.  Things seen today:

( Things seen without a camera.  )

Helga Saab has passed her MOT, and she only needed a fuel filter and one headlamp bulb!  Rejoice! For a car that has done over 135,000 miles, that's not bad. Well done Helga.    I think her fan controller thing has got stuck and needs looking at -  but given how absurdly cold this summer is, slightly misplaced aircon is hardly a major problem. 

( Green Woodworking Course )

( The Tools )

In other news:( The Augean Saab is dealt with )

( The Village Show )

Yet another update to say that I still don't have my car back.  They rang me today to say that they have just ordered in a tyre, and will call me on Friday 'to say how things are going'.

WHY WHY WHY did they not order the sodding tyre earlier?  And it takes 3 days to get a tyre delivered and fitted on a common model of car now???  When they got the car, almost 2 months ago, it was immediately apparent that the tyres had been damaged.   I can't believe they have found another excuse for delay.

In case anyone is travelling to Devon and Cornwall on holiday and happens to have a car accident this year, I strongly recommend that wherever your insurance company tries to send you for repairs, you refuse to have any work done at Exway Coachworks.

 I just called the garage again (Exway Coachworks, if anyone wants to put it on their 'must-avoid' list. )

They had told me that the car would definitely be ready on Friday, but surprise surprise, it has more damage than they thought so we are once again waiting for parts.  Despite the fact that they've now had the car 5 weeks, they are still finding new things wrong with it, and apparently they were 'too busy' to phone me to tell me what was going on.

I really wish they had written the bloody thing off from the start: I could have bought a new car by now. I'd be totally skint, but at least I'd have a proper car that would fit 2 hounds in comfort.

I asked the garage for the total cost of the work so far and I thought they said: £3700 (they became very indignant when I asked about this.  I'm not sure why, it's my sodding car).  So I rang the insurance company, who rang the garage, who said £2700, which is the original estimate.  I'm pretty sure that I did explain that I wanted to know the total *including the new work*, but apparently nobody apart from the insurance company engineer knows how much that will cost.  How they can authorise it and order more parts without making any record of how much the parts costs, is beyond me, but it appears that is the case. 

I asked if there was any limitation on how long repairs could take before the car would be written off or the garage investigated but apparently there is no limit.  

The insurance company phone guy kept assuring me that the work would be done as soon as parts arrived, but was unable to explain, in that case why :
a) I was told that the original valuation took a long time because staff were on holiday and there was an unusual amount of work in.
b) if they confirmed that they had all the parts they thought that they needed 2 weeks ago, why they have only just noticed that additional parts are now needed.  I just can't believe they can really have been working on it for 2 whole weeks before they realised that the drive shaft needed replacing.   I wish I'd made more thorough notes now: I think it was Friday 1st that they confirmed they had all the parts, but I don't have a record. 

The repairs have been authorised by the insurance company (Egg: Good Egg!)  They are not going to write it off! 

 *dances with joy*

Saffy collie has a new home lined up.  She's here for one more week, then she's moving down the river to a new home in the middle of the woods.  Having her here has been a lot of fun, (Sooo much walking!  soooooo much!) but has confirmed my view that three dogs is Just Too Many, at least with  6 cats as well, and particularly when one of them is a needy walk-obsessed collie! Though to be fair, as collies go, Saffy is fairly laid back and relaxed in the house.

Very pleased with how well Mollydog has coped with extra-long collie walks.  That previcox she is on for her bad leg is good stuff!   Pix of yesterday's (two hour) walk are here: http://pix.clareassoc.co.uk/pix/thumbnails.php?album=22

Still no news of my car: I've rung a few times and get the impression they haven't even looked at the damn thing yet. I think this may be a consequence of all the major insurance companies only having about 3 'registered garages' in the region, plus an unexpectedly busy Easter weekend. Irritating: if they'd let me go to my local specialist garage I'd probably have it back by now. I'd definitely at least know what it was going to cost!

I'm regretting not using better compost for my pepper and aubergine seedlings. Even with plenty of liquid seaweed feed, they are growing far too slowly.

Bought some more solar lights for the garden.  I find the most reliable sort seem to be the ones that are designed to float on ponds, so are completely sealed: otherwise the water gets in after a while and they stop working.   They have a loop on the top so you can stick a bit of garden wire through and hang them on trees.

We have started the cats on 'senior' cat food.  Of course, the Bungles are not 'senior' (though I was surprised to discover that the vet considered the Hairy Bears at 8-9 to fall into that category) but Perl and Footie are (I can't remember their exact ages without looking them up.  This makes me feel guilty!).  Anyway, we have one bag of each, and are supplying one bowl of each.  I was expecting them to eat the normal stuff and ignore the 'senior', which has fewer calories, but in fact the reverse has been the case: the 'senior' has been scrobbled up with great enthusiasm.  Cats are odd.

I failed to pay my car tax on time this year. This is 90% my fault, but, I would argue, 10% the fault of DVLA for sending out the renewal notices well before you are actually allowed to go and buy the tax, thus ensuring that the renewal has to be put in a Safe Place, and therefore, in my case, assuring disaster.

Anyway, I'd only missed one month so I rang the DVLA and after fighting my way through the biggest set of options in Christendom, managed to speak to a human (Welsh). She told me I should tax the car at the post office and send a cheque to a secret address in Exeter. This information isn't on the DVLA website. It is a Secret.

So I did that. Today the cheque came back, with big stamp on it, and a hand written note saying they needed the car registration number. I had foolishly assumed that given that I had given my name, address and the reference number on the renewal reminder, they could look up any other details. But no, apparently not. I know I gave the renewal number, because I also wrote it on the back of the cheque...

I wonder why the renewal had a reference number if the number cannot be used to check other details also shown on the same form? Is it purely decorative...?