Long weekend cancelled!

Well, I'we just had an extra long weekend as I had Friday off as well as today. The plan was to go camping in Cheshire. The site was booked and everything but on Thursday morning we had some (fairly torrential) rain and the forecast wasn't good for the rest of the weekend. Chris got chickened out and decided that he didn't want to go, so that meant I couldn't either. The big tent is impossible to put up single-handedly.

The worst of it is, ever since Thursday afternoon the weather has been glorious. It has been a bit breezy but lovely, warm and sunny. perfect camping weather. Mrs Jarman, from the campsite, rang up on Saturday to find out why we hadn't turned up and I had to apologise on Chris' behalf. He claimed he couldn't ring and cancel the booking because he couldn't find the "big book" but when I looked, it was in the wooden box where it is supposed to be. Needless to say that someone was in the doghouse!

Anyway, the weekend didn't turn out to be too bad. We managed to get quite a few jobs out of the way and yesterday we went to Stapley and got a 3 more baby kois for the fish tank. They were named Tango, Bluey and Custard. Can anybody guess the colours??!

Fantastic news; it passed!

Yes, I did get the full traffic lights of forms but in the end; it was the green one that conts. The red one was only for the leaking CV boot, which I knew about from the summer health check. I had already bought a replacement which they fitted for me.

The amber form was for an oli leak from the filter. The mechanic said that it might only be what Chris didn't wipe off when he changed the oil and filter last weekend. We checked the oil and it hasn't gone down any and there is no evidence of any leaks neither on the drive nor at my parking space at work.

I feel a lot better about my trusty ol'Jap after all.

more Car problems!

Yesterday morning, just after seven, I got a text from Chris asking me to put his car on charge, using the camping lead. That sounded ominous as my car was parked behind it on the drive. I rushed up to have a look from the window. No his car wasn't on the drive but half-way up the street.

It appeared that he couldn't get it to start so he pushed it in order to jump start it but still no avail. Must have just dumped it there and taken the bike instead.

Muggins got the job of first searching through all the camping stuff to find the lead only to find it wasn't long enough. I started to push the car back towards the house with immense difficulty but one of our neighbours drove past and stopped to help me.

Eventually we got it close enough for the lead to reach the battery charger. By now the car was partly across the road as the back wheel had touched the kerb and refused to line up any better.

As you can imagine, by now I was fuming with the blooming thing. I had to go work so I left the keys with another neighbour who said he would push it into the drive later. That was very good of him. I am definitely ready to get shut of that thing now. No wonder I have always hated old bangers and this one doesn't behave any better.

Can't wait to see how mine will behave on Saturday; fingers crossed!

Cars

On Saturday we took both the cars in for a "Free summer health check". A year has passed by since my disastrous MOT last year, so I thought it might be a good idea to take advantage of this offer. We had to buy the local newspaper to collect tokens to get it and booked them in.

Whilst the cars were at the garage we walked around the surrounding are and came across a lovely Chinese supermarket which we didn't know existed. They sold all sorts of oriental food and a lot of stuff we had never seen before but it all looked very interesting. We bought a few bits and pieces but will definitely going back to buy more soon.

Went to collect the cars an hour later and got the verdicts. Mine has a CV boot leaking and needed an engine flush and oil + filter change.

Chris' car had all sorts of things wrong with it and at the bottom of the sheet of paper the mechanic had written "I think the driver of this vehicle should consider having it towed away". He had to sign a disclaimer form to be allowed to bring it home.

We proceeded to go to a different garage to book mine in for the MOT for next Saturday and ask them to fit the CV boot. Chris did the engine flush and changed the oil and filter himself despite of the horrible weather. I am now hoping that the car should be OK and I will get my green form.

Sunday afternoon we went to look at vans as one would be more useful and Chris' car is not worth spending any more money on. His nephew, who is a a mechanic, thinks that he ought to sell it whilst there is still some MOT left on it and use the money towards the deposit on a van.

There aren't that many places locally that sells vans but we came across some Vauxhall Combo diesels which we think would be just about perfect but Chris wasn't ready to commit himself yet.

Not too bad, overall

Well weekend has been and gone. Saturday stayed dry until about 7pm, but still managed to catch some of my washing, which was still out. Sunday was ok, but there were some showers throughout the day and in the end I had to tumble dry the last of my washing. Overall, it was much better than it has been but nowhere near the "fine weather" we were promised. When is summer coming?

Looking less hopeful

It is 16.30 on Friday afternoon and the sun is out this moment in time but it's still not looking very hopeful for us to get this fine weather, which was promised earlier in the week.

Throughout the day we have had showers and the sky is still looking bleak. :-(

Shocking News!

Tonight's weather forecast started with the sentence: "Prepare yourselves for some shocking news". That turned out to be the fact that there is 70% chance of fine weather for the weekend. Wow, can we even remember what that means anymore? With half of England suffering from flooding in various areas due to all the rain we have been having the last 4 weeks; it was truly "shocking news".

We are quite lucky ourselves as we live on top of a bank so flooding has not really been a problem here but some parts of the country has had devastating floods. It is hard to imagine what it must be like to lose absolutely everything you have and have your house soaked in mud, raw sewage and slime. Eyuk!

One woman in Sheffield lived in a bungalow, like us and she told the media how she saved all precious belongings and memories of her husband who died two years ago, only to be totally ruined by the floods that submerged her bungalow. When the national news broadcasted that; I cried and I daresay, so did many others too.

Anyway, at least I can look forward to the weekend, which does remain to see whether it indeed is fine. I'll let you know.

Hoar Cross Hall

Last weekend I spent at the luxuorious spa hotel, Hoar Cross Hall for Sioned and Anna's hen party. If you are interested here's the link to find out more http://www.hoarcross.co.uk/.

Here are some of my photos from the unforgettable event.

These photos are from my room called "Princess Florentina" with a king-size bed for myself.

This is us having a dinner in the Ball Room.

And here is the happy couple themselves.

Anna and Sioned