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Return of the Micra

Pic of the week 28/4/24

Yesterday (Saturday – I skived swapped my volleyball so I was free in the afternoon) I went to Cardiff to deliver the Fiat 500 to Sophie – which she loves – and then, crossing all my fingers and toes, drive the Micra back home.  I my confess, I was a tad apprehensive, not so much because I didn’t think I’d get back in the Micra, more because of the mega hassle that would be caused by not bringing it back, or even worse, breaking down en-route.  Anyway, I was wrong to ever doubt her, she drove back without fuss, coping well with steady motorway driving at circa 72 mph, and didn’t flinch when I pushed her a little quicker to pass a lorry, or reach the dizzying high speed of 80mph for the last mile of motorway. Anyway, she’s back home now, I’ll monitor her battery and starting over the next few weeks, but she’s such fun to drive – like a little go-kart – that my current plan is to get rid of the 205 (mid-life crisis averted) and when the Honda Civic goes to Sam, I’ll have the Micra as my little run-about.

The summer term has begun – always the best term: shorter, punctuated with exams and the days longer and lighter.  But the “summer” bit is still missing – it continues to be cold, grey and damp.  I am still wearing jeans after school and at the weekend and, as I glance outside, the rain has started to fall again.  Becky and I did manage an hour or so sat outside circa 2.30pm today in some sun – but the weather is definitely disappointing at the moment. (The garden, however, is beginning to resemble a jungle – lots of green growth and without any warm, dry days/evenings, I’ve not been outside cutting things back.)

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Dad skills

Pic of the week 21/4/2024

On Thursday we came back from a fantastic nine days in Italy. In days of old, my weekly blog post would have been a round up of the trip, but not now. Now I “live blog” whilst away and you can find the blog posts from the trip here: http://hap-pea-travels.co.uk/category/italy/

I really did enjoy the holiday: the weather was great, the food fantastic, the trains ran on time, the culture, the views …it was wonderful.

Perhaps the only fly in the ointment was on our last evening when Sophie contacted us to say her car had made “funny noises from the steering column” whilst on the motorway home, accompanied by a strange burning smell.  She got home OK – in fact she reported that when she came off the motorway and slowed down, the symptoms went away.  Later that evening, she could get the car to start at all, leaving me to do some long distance fault diagnosis.  Anyway, following my guidance and direction (disconnect the battery negative terminal, leave for 30 mins, re-connect and try again) the following morning she got the car started, took it for a short test drive: no further problems.  I am claiming dad skills to be able to fault diagnose and fix a car from one thousand miles away!

Anyway, she has now lost confidence in the Micra and thinks it only good for the scrapheap (I disagree) so on our return to the UK I had to start hunting for a replacement for her. Perhaps it was the influence of a week in Italy, but I ended up buying a 2014 Fiat 500 with 64K on the clock for £3,500 and picked it up from Shepton yesterday. I must admit it does look good, and is a nice drive. Next Sunday I’m taking it up to Cardiff, and driving the Micra back here; hopefully my blog next week will be about a happy Sophie seeing her new car, and an uneventful return trip back with the Micra (both Sophie & Becky don’t think it’ll make it!) rather than a tale of woe as I break down on the motorway …

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Back to normal

Pic of the week 7/4/24

On Wednesday, Becky, Sophie and I journeyed down to Devon – just shy of the Cornish border – to meet with Becky’s mum and dad for lunch. It was a pleasant day out, a journey of about 1hr 45 mins one way, and then on our return to Street Sophie hopped into her car and headed back to Cardiff.

On Monday I had taken Sam to Bridgwater station (in the still then noisy silver dream machine) from where he got the train back to Cardiff.

It was lovely to have them both home for a few days, but now they’ve gone back and the two of us are let rattling around the house again, trying to get all their bedding washed in between the poor weather. It continues to be wet and windy, although we have not had to endure as much rain as I feared. However, it is still definitely not shorts weather – I reckon this must be one of the latest times for donning shorts on record.  Trawling back through my blog, it seems this (when I start wearing shorts again) isn’t something I have recorded, probably because its something I just drift into doing in March or April, but currently it seems a long way away. I can’t see me wearing them before we go to Italy (on Tuesday), hopefully the weather will have turned by the time we come back …

This week I had my eyes tested – must remember to buy some new specs on my return – have run a couple of times, but not really done a huge amount else.  I did enjoy de-mod-ing the Civic (see other post) and have been doing battle with the catepillars that have been devouring the box bush out front (keep meaning to write a separate blog post about that.)  Given the grey skies and lack-lustre temperatures, I am looking forward to our Italian adventure and jetting off on Tuseday.

Ciao!

 

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De-mod happy …

… or how I neutered the beast

When even Sam found the new Civic embarrassingly loud, it was pretty clear that I needed to do something about it. So I ordered myself a new back box of ebay (along with donut gasket) for £61. It arrived today and I spent a happy couple of hours taking off the old exhaust, and fitting the new one.

The noisy, ASBO inducing, back box had obviously only been fitted fairly recently (within a year or so?) and the two bolts joining the back box to the middle section came off quite easily, although the sizes of the two flanges didn’t quite match and it had been fixed together with a bit of brute force and ignorance.  And subsequent research has suggested that the two sections should be joined with spring bolts (rather than just bolts) so I may get  a couple of them and re-fit at a later date.

Anyway, the new back box went on without too much fuss and the vehicle is now running in stealth mode (well, not exactly, but it is a lot, lot quieter.) I think I will also put the original resonator box back on, I think it will make it quieter still and probably run a little cleaner (and better) as it will be drawing in cold air, as designed. But before I can do that, I need to get some replacement bolts (the original bolts that bolt the resonator box to the car have vanished) and a new, standard, air filter. But these are jobs for when we return from Italy. But in the meantime, I’m a happy hector who enjoyed his work this morning, and now has a car that won’t wake the dead, or scare the natives.

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Birthday boy!

Pic of the week 31/3/24

Its been my birthday week! On Thursday I turned 55 – no getting away from it, I’m definitely mid-fifties now – Sophie and Sam both came home for the start of Easter on Wednesday so it was been nice to have them home for my birthday tea, and it was nice to finish for the Easter hols at lunchtime on my birthday; a couple of tough weeks at the end of term made it a bit of a slog, but now I’m on holiday, all is well with the world.

Its been a busy week. On Wednesday I went for my blood tests and on Thursday I got my results – another nice birthday gift as I have been given the all clear as my levels are all within limits and I’m signed off from the docs “Normal, stable or satisfactory – no further action required” for all test. Here are the numbers:

  • Serum cholesterol 4.6 mmol/L
  • Serum triglycerides: 1.0 mmol/L (normal is range 0.6 to 2.0)
  • Serum cholesterol/HDL ratio: 3.7
  • Se non HDL cholesterol level: 4.1 mmol/L

Wednesday also saw me get absolutely frozen on the football pitch at Kingweston. It has been a wet winter, and rain was forecast for the afternoon, but after a huge downpour that morning, I headed over in sunshine, hoping that we’d escaped. But no, on arrival it started to rain, but by the time I trotted down to pitch 5 it had stopped, and we started the game. 5 mins in, the heavens opened with a biblical hail storm that lasted a good ten minutes. It was painful and cold!  Eventually the storm passed, and the sun even came out, but ten mins from time, the hail returned, I blew for full time early, much to the delight of everyone. A truly miserable experience!

The previous half term ended with the red shed dying at Kingweston, this term ended with me buying its replacement – “the silver dream machine”, “The Beast” or “The Asbo maker” depending on your view – or, more appropriately, hearing.

The Silver Dream Machine, aka The Beast

It is a 2003 Honda Civic – I really like it, drives and stops well, circa 102K miles, some good service history, but it is loud, very LOUD! I think that until 2023 it was well looked after then, for a year, was in the hands of a boy racer who added a “sports” exhaust and external air filter and some big sub-woofers in the boot (the speakers have gone, but the wiring is still there). Even Sam – and the car is earmarked to go to him in August – thinks its too loud.  I have a normal exhaust on order (£61) due to arrive on Thursday – should be a simple replacement fit and I’ll stop terrifying the locals as I cruise the streets of Street.

Saturday was a lovely day and Becky and I grabbed the opportunity to enjoy a few hours sat outside in the sunshine, Sunday remained dry (until the biblical rains returned Sunday night) but grey and cold.  On both days I took the opportunity to do some gardening – Saturday hacking back the box bush out front – it has suffered due to caterpillar action – and on Sunday I cut a lot of the top off the bush on the top deck that continues to grow and grow and, unforgivably, was casting shade when we wanted to make the most of the rare appearance of some spring sunshine. It will grow back, I’m sure, I just hope the same can be said of the box bush.