Car update........que the disappointment

Well, I was hoping to have some good news to share, however, things didn't quite go according to plan. The car was in for its long overdue retest yesterday and I was secretly hopeful that it would pass. It didn't.

Fail points.

Not all is lost though, as the list is now down from 9 to 2. Yes, most of its been fixed, although in fixing some bits, new issues have arisen, but we'll get to that in a bit. Firstly, we'll deal with the failures, which are the headlight and hub. Now the headlight is going to be a pain, as the inner part, the reflective bit, has come loose and its this that seems to be causing the problem. I need to figure a way of propping this up and fixing it in to position or get a new headlight unit. The former should be cheap and cheerful bodge work, the latter, the proper way. For the moment ill be bodging it, somehow. The second point is the hub and this should be easy, as I have all the parts I need in the garage and now I've done it once already. I don't know what went wrong last time and don't really care right now, I just want to fix it. Hopefully I'll get some time at the weekend to do everything. Oh, and point three, the tyres, they've been changed, not sure why they did it after the MoT but they did, so ignore that one.

Advisories page 1

Advisories page 2

The list of advisories is still long, but again, some of it can be ignored. The main ones are 8, 12, 13, 14, 17 and 19. The powersteering seepage is annoying but not a problem, I will have to track it down at some point, but not now. The tire has been done along with the valve, so that's pointless. The discs being rusty is because the cars been sat for weeks with no mot, so is to be expected! As for the rusty underside, its a 13 year old car, its gonna be a bit rusty in places as it hasn't been taken care of properly. The spongy peddles because the brakes haven't been bled properly, as I couldn't undo the front bleed nipples. 

As for the rest, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 15 and 16, these are problems I intend to fix over the summer. The head light clouding is not much of a problem and I've already got the kit of ebay and I'm Not worried about the pads, their consumables, so they will need replacing every so often anyway. This also leads back to the hand brake travel, now pads will have an impact on that but ultimately the cable will need replacing as I think its stretched. Fixing the various exhaust mounts shouldn't be too hard, but with a non-standard exhaust it might be trickier than expected. The only two items that I'm really worried about are the CV gaiters, as this will require disassembling most of the front hub assembly to change properly, not a 5 minute job. However, I'm confident I can do it, and if it does of wrong or take me ages, well its not the end of the world.

The only other items on the list are the brake pipe, which I have replacements for but am going to hold off a little longer as they are still fine, just getting old. Ill have another check before the next MoT. The final point is the SIRS warning light. This could just be the bulb and a simple fix or it could be a major issue with the system. My view is its the bulb, as a major issue would cause the bulb to light up constantly, not dissapear off on holiday. It doesn't seem to be an issue for the MoT which is good!

So more issues to fix and a deadline for good measure. I've got all the bits I need this time round, so hopefully it will be plain sailing! Oh the joys of owning an old banner! And to think, I'd quite like that mgf thats sitting up the road on bricks! As much as I would love to buy it, if I did I think the next post on here would be my obituary! 

Realistic toys rant!

So, we live in a world where children wish to be adults and a lot of us adults wish to be children again (even if only part time children, the good parts that is!) but sometimes I think we take things a little to far. Toy kitchens full of toy fruits and vegetables are fun, making dinner or cups of tea for the teddy's dinner, or miniature prams to take dolly for a walk to get her to sleep. The young lady has both of these things and greatly enjoys bringing us dinner and a cup of tea and taking the pushchair for a walk round the house, with or without dolly. The little man has a tendency to join in on the fun as well and its quite nice seeing them play together. However, I think there is a limit to these things, sometimes you can get a little too real!

The offending item

For the young ladies birthday, she got a cleaning trolley with broom, hoover, dust pan and brush plus toy cleaning spray bottle. The hoover makes lots of noise but does nothing and the spray bottle doesn't spray, in fact it doesn't do anything. The rest work as they should, including the final item, which in case you haven't worked out from the picture above, is a mop and bucket! A mop and bucket! Whose idea was that? The mop is actually really good and picking up water from the bucket and distributing it across the floor, it is however completely useless at picking it back up of said floor!

In action

They seem to have only done half the job, they've made a mop and bucket that work as a mop and bucket without adding the final piece, so you can spread water all over the floor but not get it back up unless.you use a real mop or a cloth, which would be fine if I was actually planning on cleaning the floor.

Now don't getme wrong, it cute watching the young lady trying to mop the floor, mostly cost she looks so proud of herself, but when its the 5 time that day that she's done it, it gets a little tedious. All I ask is that next time build a squeezer thing into the bucket or even the mop, just something so that my bathroom doesn't end up looking like a swimming pool! If you can make a hoover suck (very badly but it does suck) and a dust pan and brush that works as well as mine, then what can't you make a mop that works properly as well!

In sure there are plenty of toys out there that fall in to the same category but right now issue is with the dam mop!

Bithday cakes

I mentioned that the wife does the birthday cakes for the bairns, so I thought that I would showcase a few of them.

And his 4th birthday, dinosaur!

The young ladies 2nd, a little horsey cake. The young ladies just as horse mad as her mummy.

This years cake, the little mans 5th. Its missing its sail, I hadn't put it on at this point.

Well, there's just a few of the cakes, there are the other birthday cakes, the Christmas and other family occasion cake too, but I couldn't find any of them when I was writing this post. If I do find mark, I'll have to add them later.

Fun at the beach

Last weekend we headed to the local beach with some friends, just a little get together to take advantage of the spring sun. While the car boot looked like a miniature construction site on the way down, with diggers, dumper trucks, bull dozers and more spades than you can shake a stick at, the kids didn't really make the most of it all when we got there. That's not tonsay they didn't play with it, not at all, it got played with and deposited around most of the beach. I think the monster trucks went down best, especially with one of the younger ones! The little chap got quite possessive at times! Anyway, while the kids were off rock pooling and looking in caves, I thought I would have a little fun by myself. Now, I usually attempt to build sand castles but get about 2 sandcastles in before the first is destroyed by some rouge construction vehicle or dinosaur or child, but with the bairns occupied, things got a little further!

Almost complete.

I almost got the thing complete, the main castle is pretty much finished and I was just working on the gate houses (just visible on the far left) when the bairns appeared, their feet are just visible at the right of the picture! The photo isn't the best, as it was snapped quickly before anything happened to the castle! And it was a good I deal that I did, as I tried to get a second picture from a different angle when this happened;

Rouge bulldozer and feet!

The mote never even got started and I had grand plans for a draw bridge as well!

After the castle, another request was made, so I set about building a tunnel or bridge as the bairns called it.

Entrance

Internal shot

The tunnel went quite well in the end, it only took 3 attempts to build, the first was collapsed by a small foot from a nosy little person, the second collapsed all by itself, although that might have been because I was being a little ambitious with the design. The third however, worked just fine. It even survived being stood on by two small bairns! I realise that the beach is supposed to be for the bairns to play, but there's no reason us adults can get in on the action!