You, dear reader, being the attentive and intelligent person you undoubtedly are, will have formed a mental image of me as you've read my musings and mutterings.
I have no way of knowing whether you find me boring or interesting; what I look like in your minds eye (you might have seen pictures of me from time to time on this blog of course); whether your mental image is anywhere near how I wish to be percieved, etc.
Let me add something to the jigsaw and say that I'm not a mechanically apt person. My middle name isn't "dexterity".
"Dexterity" by the way, derives from "Right Handed".
So in the strict sense of the word, I am far from Dextrous. I am in fact, Sinister.
Muhahahahahaha!
I am also cack handed. Both in the sense of being left handed, and in the sense of being clumsy.
Or so I've always been told.
"It was a Naccident" was a catchphrase my Dad invented for me. It kind of took the joy out of getting a junior toolkit for christmas.
No matter. I have other skills. I'm perfectly dextrous (with either hand) if you give me a steering wheel.
This week though, I've fixed a car.
You heard me right. I've taken a car that had a fault, and done what was required to make the fault go away. I can't take the credit for diagnosing the fault. That has to go to Bren. She reckoned that the HT leads were the problem. The HT leads take electrical energy from the battery, and feed it to the spark plugs, via something called a distributor - the sparks have to happen in a certain order to make the engine turn the crank)
First part of sorting out this problem was to get off my arse and buy the appropriate make and model HT leads from ebay. When we got around to trying to exchange them, we found that although the connections between the spark plugs and the distributor cap were sound, where the lead from the battery went into the distributer cap both male and female connections had completely corroded. Instead of shiny coppery metal, we had green copper oxide dust. It was remarkable that the car would run at all really, but it was only in damp conditions that it would fail to start.
So I then had to buy a distributor cap. And then I had to fit it. It was fitted over the distributor by two screws. The top screw came out relatively simply with a flathead screwdriver, but the awkwardly placed bottom screw resisted repeated attempts with a variety of flathead, and phillips screwdrivers. Then, looking at the screw I had got out, I noticed that the screwhead was not round but hexagonal. Bingo! I brought pliers, adjustable spanners, and a small mole grip to bear, but still, the screw refused to budge.
So I took the screw inside the house and asked Bren if we had a socket that would fit over it. She dug out the small sockets, and I found one that fitted snugly over the screwhead. Having found the right tool, the stubborn screw offered little resistance, and I was able to remove the old distributor head, replace it with the new one, and correctly put the leads back in the right order, having thoughtfully made a note of their positions prior to removing the old ones.
Now I'm sure that anyone reading this with any aptitude for fixing stuff reads this, they'll be saying, "huh? Big Deal. It's a piss easy job." But I'm pleased with both what I achieved, and how I went about achieving it.
Something else I set my mind to has also borne fruit.
As we were returning from one of the furniture runs I wrote about earlier, I got a text message. This was an enquiry from my website contact form. As it happens, I didn't have my diary with me, and it was getting late so rather than phone the enquirer, I emailed her when I got home.
She called today and I will be giving her son a driving lesson tomorrow. She's talking about doing an intensive course with me, which mean's he's potentially worth several hundred pounds of business to me, which makes the 10p the enquiry cost me, and even the £10 or so I invested overall seem like very small beer.
Good times within the greater gloom. Still smelling smoke. Tired out and bedbound. That's all for today.
driving lessons in Wallasey?
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Smoke gets in your eyes.
As I was saying the other day, I've not smoked for quite a few months. Prior to me giving up, I'd never smoke indoors. Tobacco smoke is a migraine trigger for Bren, and even if that wasn't the case, a tobacco smelling house is unpleasant for non-smokers. When I lived on my own, I'd happily smoke in my living room, bathroom, even occasionally the kitchen or bedroom, but since moving in with Bren, I'd go outside, come rain or shine. So the ban on smoking indoors in public spaces was just a small progression from that.
Bren, by the way, has been a busy lady over the last few weeks and months. She'd planned to open up a space offering locally produced art and craft goods for sale, with a space for crafting workshops. These plans were facilitated by government funding to help bring empty shops back into use. She found the shop she wanted, applied for funding, and had her application approved.
So wheels are turning. She's had to battle to view the property thanks to the lax attitude of the estate agent assigned to the property, but having done so, she's at the point where she's trying to get a business account (and overdraft) at the bank, attempting to engage the services of a solicitor to sort out the lease, and putting together a planning application for a change of use from a taxi office to a shop/workshop. This should be straightforward. The shop needs a lot of work doing to it, both decoratively, and to a lesser extent, structurally. Internal walls need to be removed. Fixtures such as sinks and hot water boilers need to be installed. And the whole thing needs cleaning up and repainting. (the ceiling in the office behind the front of shop is dark brown with nicotine and general grubbiness. The upstairs has a functional bathroom, but everywhere is filthy.
Until the lease is signed and the key handed over, there's nothing we can do about this side of things, but Bren has been buying all sorts of stuff on as slim a budget as possible using ebay. Bookshelves, Wardrobes, sideboards. All will find function as display cabinets. Hopefully giving the completed shop an air of shabby chic. So we've been out and about in her Son's Ford Mondeo Estate. An amazingly roomy car. We managed to fit two large shelving units in it on our trip to Frodsham. A 7 foot 6 inch bookcase was accomodated with a rope and slightly raised tailgate on a trip to St Helens, and the wardrobe we will be picking up from Chester (or is it Bolton?) should go in if flatpacked. It could probably manage a python if you folded it in half. The python I mean, not the Mondeo.
As well as such fixtures and fittings, Bren also picked up some stock. Crafting materials from a house in a place called Clock Face.
Clock Face is only about 20 miles or so from where I live, on the outskirts of St Helens. I'd never ever heard of it. Despite living so close, I was totally unaware of the existance of a place with that name.
The river mersey is a psychological and cultural barrier as well as a geographical one. I could name pretty much every little hamlet and suburb on Wirral, even parts of Wirral that are about the same distance away. Ask me where Little Stanney is, or Puddington, or Poulton Lancelyn, and I will take you there unerringly.
Anyway, at least one of the people in the house, from whom we bought the crafting materials, was an indoor smoker. We were there for about 45 minutes while Bren went through the stock, selecting the stuff she was interested in buying. That was about 24 hours ago now.
And somehow, I can't get the stink of stale tobacco out of my nostrils. I've washed my hair. Changed my clothes. Shaved my facial hair. But all day, I've been intermittantly plagued by this smell. And not just the smell. It's even making my eyes sting. In the car. In the living room. Now, in my computer room.
It's not something that induces craving. No sirree.
Nobody else seems to be aware that I smell of cigarettes strongly enough to may my eyes sting and my nose wrinkle with disgust. Could it be psychosomatic?
Still not drinking. Emphatically still not smoking. I don't think my weight has changed much. And I'm working for ten days straight. My first day off since the 2nd of January will be on Friday 13th. Good job too. We have to find the money for the wardrobes and sinks from somewhere.
driving lessons in Wallasey?
Bren, by the way, has been a busy lady over the last few weeks and months. She'd planned to open up a space offering locally produced art and craft goods for sale, with a space for crafting workshops. These plans were facilitated by government funding to help bring empty shops back into use. She found the shop she wanted, applied for funding, and had her application approved.
So wheels are turning. She's had to battle to view the property thanks to the lax attitude of the estate agent assigned to the property, but having done so, she's at the point where she's trying to get a business account (and overdraft) at the bank, attempting to engage the services of a solicitor to sort out the lease, and putting together a planning application for a change of use from a taxi office to a shop/workshop. This should be straightforward. The shop needs a lot of work doing to it, both decoratively, and to a lesser extent, structurally. Internal walls need to be removed. Fixtures such as sinks and hot water boilers need to be installed. And the whole thing needs cleaning up and repainting. (the ceiling in the office behind the front of shop is dark brown with nicotine and general grubbiness. The upstairs has a functional bathroom, but everywhere is filthy.
Until the lease is signed and the key handed over, there's nothing we can do about this side of things, but Bren has been buying all sorts of stuff on as slim a budget as possible using ebay. Bookshelves, Wardrobes, sideboards. All will find function as display cabinets. Hopefully giving the completed shop an air of shabby chic. So we've been out and about in her Son's Ford Mondeo Estate. An amazingly roomy car. We managed to fit two large shelving units in it on our trip to Frodsham. A 7 foot 6 inch bookcase was accomodated with a rope and slightly raised tailgate on a trip to St Helens, and the wardrobe we will be picking up from Chester (or is it Bolton?) should go in if flatpacked. It could probably manage a python if you folded it in half. The python I mean, not the Mondeo.
As well as such fixtures and fittings, Bren also picked up some stock. Crafting materials from a house in a place called Clock Face.
Clock Face is only about 20 miles or so from where I live, on the outskirts of St Helens. I'd never ever heard of it. Despite living so close, I was totally unaware of the existance of a place with that name.
The river mersey is a psychological and cultural barrier as well as a geographical one. I could name pretty much every little hamlet and suburb on Wirral, even parts of Wirral that are about the same distance away. Ask me where Little Stanney is, or Puddington, or Poulton Lancelyn, and I will take you there unerringly.
Anyway, at least one of the people in the house, from whom we bought the crafting materials, was an indoor smoker. We were there for about 45 minutes while Bren went through the stock, selecting the stuff she was interested in buying. That was about 24 hours ago now.
And somehow, I can't get the stink of stale tobacco out of my nostrils. I've washed my hair. Changed my clothes. Shaved my facial hair. But all day, I've been intermittantly plagued by this smell. And not just the smell. It's even making my eyes sting. In the car. In the living room. Now, in my computer room.
It's not something that induces craving. No sirree.
Nobody else seems to be aware that I smell of cigarettes strongly enough to may my eyes sting and my nose wrinkle with disgust. Could it be psychosomatic?
Still not drinking. Emphatically still not smoking. I don't think my weight has changed much. And I'm working for ten days straight. My first day off since the 2nd of January will be on Friday 13th. Good job too. We have to find the money for the wardrobes and sinks from somewhere.
driving lessons in Wallasey?
Fragments.
Funny what you remember.
I was ten years old, and had recently moved house. New house, new school. I was in either 3rd or 4th year primary school, and the teacher, who's name eludes me right now (she was a female teacher, married to a male teacher with the same surname - Mrs Veats?) was reading us a story.
It was actually just a bit of a story. She would have read the preceding bit the previous day. She would read the next bit on the day after.
This is part of what happened when you were at primary school. Teachers would read you stories. I had Jonathan Livingstone Seagull read to me when I was perhaps 8 or 9 by Mr Dolby, my teacher in my previous school in North Wales, and I can still recall the sense of wonder I got, even if I didn't really understand it in the way I would now.
Anyway, on this occasion, Mrs Veats scared the living daylights out of me, because she ended that day's segment staring at the class, round eyed, and saying, "They weren't stars at all. (dramatic pause...) They were eyes."
There is nothing else I remember of this. Just that one fragment, and until about 10 minutes ago, I'd never thought I'd be able to expand on that. But of course, these days we have free and easy access to everything that ever was thanks to the internet, and typing that one phrase in revealed that the book it comes from is called "The Owl: A Novel of Extraordinary Fantasy" By Allan Sussman.
If you're ten years old, I strongly recommend it.
Edit: Just looking further, ths one was written in 2009, so it's not the one I thought it was. Ooops.
driving lessons in Wallasey?
I was ten years old, and had recently moved house. New house, new school. I was in either 3rd or 4th year primary school, and the teacher, who's name eludes me right now (she was a female teacher, married to a male teacher with the same surname - Mrs Veats?) was reading us a story.
It was actually just a bit of a story. She would have read the preceding bit the previous day. She would read the next bit on the day after.
This is part of what happened when you were at primary school. Teachers would read you stories. I had Jonathan Livingstone Seagull read to me when I was perhaps 8 or 9 by Mr Dolby, my teacher in my previous school in North Wales, and I can still recall the sense of wonder I got, even if I didn't really understand it in the way I would now.
Anyway, on this occasion, Mrs Veats scared the living daylights out of me, because she ended that day's segment staring at the class, round eyed, and saying, "They weren't stars at all. (dramatic pause...) They were eyes."
There is nothing else I remember of this. Just that one fragment, and until about 10 minutes ago, I'd never thought I'd be able to expand on that. But of course, these days we have free and easy access to everything that ever was thanks to the internet, and typing that one phrase in revealed that the book it comes from is called "The Owl: A Novel of Extraordinary Fantasy" By Allan Sussman.
If you're ten years old, I strongly recommend it.
Edit: Just looking further, ths one was written in 2009, so it's not the one I thought it was. Ooops.
driving lessons in Wallasey?
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Keeping track...
Here is at least some of where I've been today. (First lesson the logger was being charged)
Starting in Wallasey, I drove to Saughall Massie, and collected my pupil. We then spent two hours driving around, mainly working on improving her ability to reverse. With it being a 2 hour lesson, we had both the headspace and the physical space and time to be quite relaxed about things. And it worked wonders. Whenever she struggled, we were able to work on each thing. Now this pupil can really make a car go backwards around a corner!
I chose to take her to Meols Promenade, because I wanted her to experience as strong a wind as possible (today has been stormy.). She was fine with that too.
If you're interested, you can download today's route by clicking on THIS LINK
The more observant and logical reader may, on close examination, be able to work out where we did a turn in the road, where we did a bay park, and possibly even where we reversed around a corner. The resolution of the logger is even good enough to show where we parallel parked.
Total logged journey distance: About 34 miles.
Today's weight. 13 st 4 lbs. Change in weight: 0
Alcohol drank today: None. Amount drank this year? None.
Finally, welcome, Tabloid Watch to my blog roll. Assiduous they are, in pointing out the weaselly hypocricy of the British Right Wing Tabloids. A worthy addition, I'm sure you'll agree.
driving lessons in Wallasey?
Starting in Wallasey, I drove to Saughall Massie, and collected my pupil. We then spent two hours driving around, mainly working on improving her ability to reverse. With it being a 2 hour lesson, we had both the headspace and the physical space and time to be quite relaxed about things. And it worked wonders. Whenever she struggled, we were able to work on each thing. Now this pupil can really make a car go backwards around a corner!
I chose to take her to Meols Promenade, because I wanted her to experience as strong a wind as possible (today has been stormy.). She was fine with that too.
If you're interested, you can download today's route by clicking on THIS LINK
The more observant and logical reader may, on close examination, be able to work out where we did a turn in the road, where we did a bay park, and possibly even where we reversed around a corner. The resolution of the logger is even good enough to show where we parallel parked.
Total logged journey distance: About 34 miles.
Today's weight. 13 st 4 lbs. Change in weight: 0
Alcohol drank today: None. Amount drank this year? None.
Finally, welcome, Tabloid Watch to my blog roll. Assiduous they are, in pointing out the weaselly hypocricy of the British Right Wing Tabloids. A worthy addition, I'm sure you'll agree.
driving lessons in Wallasey?
Sunday, 1 January 2012
Resolutions, in higher resolution.
I intend to be quite structured and organised about things this year. There are tools at my disposal.
First off, there's a Wii, with a Wii Fit board. I intend for this blog to be a record of my weight (and waist measurement)
I shall try to do this weekly, but not necessarily every seven days.
Second tool for me to organise and tabulate my life with is a GPS logger that I bought with the Amazon vouchers I asked people to get me for christmas. It records a track that I can import into Google Earth. I intend to use it to publicise the fantastic and adventurous things I do with my pupils, to record the track of any bikerides or walks or anything, and possibly just to show where I've been on any particular day.
You, the Eagle Eyed Blog reader will no doubt have read my earlier contrite post when I announced to the Whole Damn World that I'm a reformed character, and would no longer be drinking.
You'll also no doubt have noticed that I failed to record the fact that I'd started again.
Guilt and shame are harder to post about than good intentions.
Anyway, I'm trying again now. I hope I have the courage to admit I've slipped, if I do slip.
The day, in figures:
Distance Travelled: I don't know. I didn't have the logger with me. Went to Moreton for Lunch with Family. Came home. That's about 10 miles I reckon. All done by car.
Alcohol drunk: None. Cigarettes smoked: None.
That is a success story. I have no desire to restart. It's just a non-issue. I suppose it's about 5 months since I had one. I will try to record the 6 month and 12 month milestones on this blog if I remember.
My weight is 13 stone and 4 pounds. I'm 5 foot 8-9 inches tall, which makes my BMI somewhere around 28.5.
The middle number is unlikely to change much. The other two should hopefully diminish.
driving lessons in Wallasey?
First off, there's a Wii, with a Wii Fit board. I intend for this blog to be a record of my weight (and waist measurement)
I shall try to do this weekly, but not necessarily every seven days.
Second tool for me to organise and tabulate my life with is a GPS logger that I bought with the Amazon vouchers I asked people to get me for christmas. It records a track that I can import into Google Earth. I intend to use it to publicise the fantastic and adventurous things I do with my pupils, to record the track of any bikerides or walks or anything, and possibly just to show where I've been on any particular day.
You, the Eagle Eyed Blog reader will no doubt have read my earlier contrite post when I announced to the Whole Damn World that I'm a reformed character, and would no longer be drinking.
You'll also no doubt have noticed that I failed to record the fact that I'd started again.
Guilt and shame are harder to post about than good intentions.
Anyway, I'm trying again now. I hope I have the courage to admit I've slipped, if I do slip.
The day, in figures:
Distance Travelled: I don't know. I didn't have the logger with me. Went to Moreton for Lunch with Family. Came home. That's about 10 miles I reckon. All done by car.
Alcohol drunk: None. Cigarettes smoked: None.
That is a success story. I have no desire to restart. It's just a non-issue. I suppose it's about 5 months since I had one. I will try to record the 6 month and 12 month milestones on this blog if I remember.
My weight is 13 stone and 4 pounds. I'm 5 foot 8-9 inches tall, which makes my BMI somewhere around 28.5.
The middle number is unlikely to change much. The other two should hopefully diminish.
driving lessons in Wallasey?
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