Crabtastic

A few weeks ago I decided to get out and spend some quality time with the kids. So how better to do that but to take them crab fishing! I remember doing this as a kid and pulling loads of the things out of the sea. So ebay supplied some crablines,  half a pound of bacon from tesco along with a picnic and we were off to Fife.
I don't remember this being so hard but after a couple of hours without a bite, we gave up and headed for the beach.

Again with the mots. ..

Hardly seems like a year since the last bout of mot madness, but here we are again. Jessica was done a couple of weeks ago. She got a fail on the brakes which was quickly sorted. So Molly is in now and I really have no idea what will happen. My pre-checks were ok but you never know. Neither of the cars have had much use over the past few months, mainly due to the new arrival being in the way. Yeah the bike. A suzuki gs500 to be precise. It seems to fit in the niche between the classics. An interesting and fun vehicle which i can work on and use for getting to work. Problem is, it is parked on the drive in front of the cars. So what to do? Monoblock the front lawn! Just need to sort the budget now.

The beast is stirred from her slumber

So the past month or so has seen Jessica getting gently re-commissioned. We have had a couple of issues to sort. Firstly, the overheating problem came back. I put some effort into this last summer but as its very hard to pinpoint,I was never sure if i had cracked it. Turns out i hadn't. So i went through a full refresh of the cooling system and so far so good. I swapped out the fan belt too and it turned out it was much needed!

The other issue was the overdrive. After being stood all winter its kinda expected that something will go wrong. And it did. The overdrive started dropping out after a short while, especially when the radio on. It turned out that the inhibitor switch and the relay had died. Again new ones are on now and so far so good. We've not taken her away yet but it can't be long now!

Winter Woes

As some of you may be aware, we have had a little snow in Scotland. Well to be honest we've had a lot of snow. Now Scotland is known for the rubbish weather, but this is ridiculous.

Skoda

Molly

I've spend the past couple of weeks shoveling snow and ice. I had planned to switch the cars around and get Molly in the garage so I could get some work done on her. Oh the best laid plans... The quantity of snow is quite remarkable, I had a crack at digging Molly out but had to come in as it was getting too cold. I'm probably going to have to wait until the weekend now.

Snow Monster

I managed to get a set of (very expensive) winter tyres for the Skoda which really seem to be making a difference. While the people of the Lothians are spinning their wheels I am (so far) maintaining a little more control. Now I really want to try Molly in the snow, anyone got some snow chains or town and country tyres?

Bug in Snug Rug Shocker!

It's about this time of year I like to wrap up Jessica ready for winter. Don't get me wrong, she's not going to be forgotten about for the next 6 months. The cover comes on and off about 10 times between now and the spring. But what with weather being what it is, its best to get these things sorted sooner rather than later.

Oh and yeah its a spangly new cover from Just Kampers. Cool.


It even has some swanky zips at the front that lets you get in to the van when the cover is on. Cool or what?!

Also a large parcel arrived from Martin which included some lovely fibreglass panels to repair Jessica's tatty rear end, along with some nice new rear screen rubbers and some wiper blades.


Oh yeah and there is the new steering wheel. Ok it's not new but I have painted it!

Singing for her supper

Autumn is a time of change, rain and darkness. One of the big things is the garden activity. Basically the garden needs to be cleaned up before winter. Which is our case was a bit of a pain seeing as how I haven't tended the garden for about 3 years.

The other contributing factor was the impeding failure of the fence at the end of the garden, and the fact that the neighbours have just put up a lovely new fence. And ours is rotten.

So first things first. Find the fence. Not completely straightforward as it was lurking behind some very overgrown plants. A very pretty (but overgrown) Buddleja. Which, when it's well tended grows furiously and has beautiful orange flowers. Anyway that's sorted . Then there was the berberis which was making a break for it by working it's way through the dilapidated fence. Well that had to go . And finally the honeysuckle. It was a really mature plant with a lovely gnarly trunk but again years of neglect meant that it had to come out. That and the fact that it's trunk was rotten and it was holding up the bottom rung of the fence.

Of course, I needed a way to get all this stuff to the recycling centre didn't I?

Spotted

I often find myself cruising round the area, minding my own business. Now I must admit it's often in Molly so hardly inconspicuous, but then again sometimes I find things like this. A beautiful example of Vauxhall's finest, towing a Portafold fibreglass folding caravan if I'm not mistaken.

Then there was this thing. Says landrover on the front, but looks nothing like the forward control landrovers I've seen before. It'll be nice to see it out and about when it's done.