Category: Tales from my life

About 2 or 3 years ago, the front electric window on the passenger side of my car stopped working. Being a cheapass who doesn’t take stuff in to be fixed until she knows what the problem is, I took off the door panel and had a look. The window goes up and down thanks to a motor which winds and unwinds metal cables kinda like those used on bike brakes. The one that made the window go up had obviously snagged on something and had sheared through. So I switched the cables round, figuring i’d rather have a window that goes up and not down than the other way round. It stayed in place for a while, but over time gravity had its wicked way and the window slid further and further down, the tension in the cable just wasn’t enough to hold it. I occasionally got pissed off with it and tried to tape it to the door frame so stop it falling down, but that rarely fixed it for more than a week or so.

Then last week, the driver side window started doing the same thing. Today, in a fit of ‘OMG NEED TO DO SOMETHING NAO’ I decided we should fix it, and made Gren stop playing WoW to come and help me. After getting the panel off, we discovered that it was the same problem as before, one of the cables had sheared through, though this time not as cleanly and there were probably bits of cable in the motor too, but it still goes bzzzzzzzz when you press the button so maybe not. At this point i started to lose interest in the whole thing. Diagnosing and fixing problems with stuff is awesome if there’s an actual way to fix it, otherwise it’s just boring. Eventually we got some sticks wrapped in felt (for padding) and duct tape (to make them thick enough) and rammed them into the runners and used a bit more duct tape just to be sure. At least the stupid window won’t fall down again. hopefully. Then we had to do the same thing on the other side, and I was getting more and more bored, but after doing the first side I realised it was pretty much a one-person job, so I just stood around and flailed and whined a bit while gren did most of the work on the passenger door. score.

The most annoying thing is, all it needs is a new bit of magic metal cable, but, according to some guy in the pub who i kinda know and who works as a mechanic and said he looked it up, you can’t just buy the stupid bit of metal that obviously breaks ALL the time seeing as it broke on BOTH my windows. You have to buy the whole extra motor and all the other bits that i don’t even need and it probably costs like a million pounds. If I still lived in London I’d probably make the effort to check out some salvage yards (mostly because omg i LOVE salvage yards, they have so much cool STUFF in them), but I don’t think Norwich is sufficiently advanced to have such areas of awesome, or if it is, i dont know where they are. So instead i will just have to sit in my sweltering hot car with both front windows up and sob gently to myself about the unfairness of it all.

BUT!

when it rains we won’t get soaked any more, and the wind won’t go ‘wooooooooooooo wwwwweeeeeee’ in a really annoying way when you drive more than 30. so in my book that counts as at least a partial fix. so yeah, I FIXED MY CAR USING DUCT TAPE (and some bits of a stick i found on the floor)

Okay, so yeah, i’m a bad blogger. First things first, i didn’t forget about the competition, i just did the rng and contacted the winners via Rav, but for those of you who didn’t see the thread, the lucky winners were gashknits and koshka. I hope you liked the fibre and yarn!

And now, a quick round up of the several months i’ve been missing. Firstly Karma became mummycat! I’d been putting off getting her spayed because the cat i lost the summer before had had a bad reaction to some anaesthetic (not what killed her), and i was panicking the same thing would happen to karma, so i was stalling. I’d fully intended to do it, and the week i was going to call the vets and arrange it, i noticed she was getting a bit chubby. A quick check of the internet for pregnancy symptoms comfirmed it, and a few weeks later she was huuuuuge, and not long after, on May 8th 2009, out came 5 tiny kittens. One was very small, and only lasted a couple of days…i tried to make her love it, but she kept pushing it away from her.

The other 4 were super cute and healthy though…one i kept, two went to live with mum and dad, and another went to live with a friend, which made me feel a bit less guilty about bringing more kitties into the world, as they hadn’t taken space that could have been had by a shelter kitty. Now mum and babies have all been neutered, so there’ll be no more accidents, which is almost a shame, as they were so fun to have around. The baby I kept is named turtle, and she’s getting big now…here’s a pic of her fighting with her mum.

Then most of the summer i was ill, went to the doctor a lot and got a referral back to the CFS clinic, but as ever they couldn’t find anything wrong, though my B12 levels were on the low side, so i started taking suppliments, and slowly started feeling better, though i’m not sure if the two things were related.

Recently there’s been lots of house-related things going on. The old boiler finally gave up, so i got a new one installed, along with new gutters. Next weekend I’m getting double glazing put in, and I’ve been picking out the bits for a new kitchen…so soon I’ll have a nice warm and pretty house!

Of course, this update wouldn’t be complete without fibre-related content! I’ve not been feeling up to doing much dyeing, but I’ve done a lot of knitting, and got a knitting machine! A passap duo 80, with a motor! So even when i’m not feeling great, I can still use it without tiring myself out. AND i can make a pair of socks on it in an afternoon! There is so much more for me to learn on it, but i’ve made a few pairs of socks, and each time i’m making fewer mistakes, so i’m loving it.

On Sunday, I got some new friends! When i look out my bedroom window, this is what i can see.

They were my dad’s Christmas present from mum last year, but he had to part with them as they are trying to sell their house, and the chickens had been pecking at the wooden windowframes and had trashed the garden, and couldn’t live in the big grassy part of the garden as planned cos next-doors dog kept escaping and attacking them. So they came to live with me.

There is Karma chicken (the same colour as mummycat!) who is a blue cochin chosen by me, then the one at the front is Silver, a silver sussex, the little one on the left is Buffy, a buff orpington bantam, and the one in the house is Polly, a welsummer. There is another one, a black rock called Rocky, but she isn’t here yet as she evaded capture. This morning polly woke me up clucking to herself. I looked out the window and couldn’t see any cats bothering them, so went down to check the food wasn’t clogged up in the feeder…I could see no reason for the noise, so i am assuming she was just showing off that she’d made me an egg…..the first since they’ve been here! She could well have been trying to tell me that she wants to be running around free, but that’s not allowed until they’ve had a few more days to settle in and i’m sure they know where their bed is and aren’t going to run away or try and roost in the trees.

And finally, after almost a year, paul built me my veggie beds!

Not so exciting yet, but soon they’ll have things growing in them! This year I’m just planning on potatoes and peas, and maybe some french beans if Nik has any spare. The beds aren’t where i’d originally planned them, so i’ll have to check that they get enough light along the hedgerow, and maybe move them next year. Hopefully by then the whole garden would have been rotovated and reseeded, so will be flat and have nice grass with no weeds.

So that’s me up to date. I’ll try and not leave it so long next time!

I keep forgetting to take photos of my animals, so instead, here’s some pics of my dad’s chickens. They were a Xmas present from my mum, she bought him the house, and he built his own run, then we went to pick the chickens up on Thursday. They are all young, either at, or coming up to, point of lay, and one has already laid an egg! Eventually they will be free ranging, but they’re staying in their run for a while until they know where their bedroom is.

From left to right they are: Rocky, a Black Rock, Buffy, a Buff Orpington, Molly, a Maran, and Polly, a Welsummer.

I fell in love with a Partridge Cochin, cos I love chickens with trousers, and because she was really talkative, the first time we went to the place she was just sitting all by herself making cute chickeny noises, but Dad decided not to get her cos he thought she was too big compared to the others.

And here’s some more pics of the chickens in the snow:

I’m going round there tomorrow, so if i manage to get there while it’s still light, I’ll get some more photos of them.