13th January 2014 - Monday, miserable weather, and motors

In fairness the day started quite bright, with sunshine as I drove down the motorway heading for the Crematorium. Sad passing of a friend who had lived further east, at Port Talbot, but apparently the Crematorium at Margam is currently closed...  It seems they had a fire !!!!

But a gathering of friends and relations to see another on their way....

No it was not until after a trip round the shops to find the best price on HP ink cartridges; varying in price from £11 to £14.99 so it pays to shop around, a visit to the pound shop for more glasses; I seem to lose them with too much ease and trying to read the instruction book on my mother's new telephones yesterday told me I need to have some "reading" reading glasses as well as my "computer" reading glasses.. a wall planner; as my calendars have not arrived from america yet, and some envelopes; which I may not need but seemed a good idea at the time... 

After that trip - which then included getting some haggis for the end of the month - £1.50 in Morrisons and £2.59 everywhere else!!! And delivering them to the caterer which gave an excuse for a cup of coffee ( I don't normally drink coffee these days but actually fancied a cuppa today) and some Bara Brith - I think that is how you spell it...  Yup - google confirms and also tells me

"translates to 'speckled bread' and is a rich fruit loaf made with tea"

So There!!

After all that, I managed to get home and then it started bucketing down again....  There has been so much rain recently that I half expect a hosepipe ban to be introduced!!!!

Once the rain had started properly, of course that was a good time to get the call from the garage..

There are good calls from a garage and there are less good calls. a good call is "Glad to inform you that the car went straight through the MOT with no trouble!" A half good call is "Your car is ready" - that is only half good because it also means that you have to pay now.. A Really not so good call is " Paul would like you to pop around so he can chat over a few things "   as you may guess - Paul is the mechanic....   

When you know that your Bothy is on the ramp - and the front is hanging off, and the radiator is on the side, and the top of the engine is all open - this is not really the sort of call that you want to hear..  And you have to go out in the pouring rain to hear it !!!

It could have been worse.. I am sure it could have !!!   But it seems that there have been some "complications"  Well he explained them all in graphic detail - but as he was talking to the one person in Llanelli who really has no mechanical savvy at all - who can best tell you the the engine is "missing" if it is not there!! The explanations did not mean a lot. But feeling like the guy whose kitchen has the boiler spread over the flooring and a plumber going "tut tut!!" I tried to look intelligent and understanding...

The give away was really when I said - "So what is the bottom line?"  

It seems that the engine is not too bad - but there has been a lot of extra hours spent trying to get it out - because bolts were sheered or welded in or bits had to be welded to them to get them out - or broken or bent ..  Extra hours means more labour and that means more money at £40 or £50  an hour plus VAT....   Oh, and the radiator is damaged !!!   That is not good either .....

So, bad news seems to come in the rain - but I was pleased for the family this morning that they could see their loved one off in the sunshine - that seemed fitting as well..

So back to the machine and rather than the tax return or the accounts - the challenge seemed to be to write a short story for the Curious Pastimes Cosmology...   The "Der Vollsanger" blog entries seemed a good starting point so a short re-write and a 2,000 word story was forthcoming...   Will forward it tomorrow I think..  But there was a picture to go with it ...

 Of Ales and Tales  - Scene One ....  
click on the link if you wish to read the story...

And now - it is beginning to get dark again. Strangely, yesterday it was still quite light at a quarter to five - but four o'clock today and I think the chickens need to be getting into their hen house.... Roll on the longer days .....