Pillings Lock Marina 2010#7

Saturday 27th March and, after a spell of nasty, horrid wind and rain yesterday, it’s turned out bright again.

Not much to do today, except for a little shopping and a bottle of gas.

Last nights Red Pepper, Ham and Cheese Tart, was rather good, but also rather filling. It also shot my blood glucose reading up somewhat. Next time a smaller portion I methinks.

I’m still wading through the ’book’ in an attempt at turning it into a single volume. Going through the ‘completed’ two volumes, I’m amazed at hoe many boo boos I’ve made, so it’s just as well I took the first listing off eBay.

All for this morning, I think I hear Wifey stirring.

It is now 4.45 pm and I am trying to sort out the compatibility for MS Office, to see if it opens and closes any quicker

Tuesday 30th March and I am now free of the North Middlesex Hospital. Whoopee!! I had my final check up yesterday and have been discharged after five years of probing my nether regions, with telescopes and cameras. But, since the medical profession simply hates to let you go completely, once they’ve got their sticky hands on you, they will be writing to my GP in the hopes that I will continue with follow up appointments. Whilst I appreciate their concern, I do not relish further assaults upon my innards and will probably resist any pressure for them to do so. Enough is enough.

Sunday was yet another excellent day spent with Alan and, I have to say, he fed and watered me rather well. The Guinness flowed freely, and the lamb was plentiful. One or other of them was too plentiful, if the complaints from my stomach are anything to go by. That’s probably information overload for some; suffice to say I slept quite well.

The run down to North Mid was really terrible, I really don’t remember the last time it took me an hour to get there. I left Harlow quite early; about 7.30; but still ran into more traffic than usual. The whole point of leaving early; my first appointment wasn’t until 9.30; was to find a parking spot in the nearby street, rather than pay their exorbitant parking fees. Fortunately I had no problems in that respect, so parking cost me nowt. Since hospitals and doctors’ surgeries always seem to run late, and since my second appointment wasn’t until 11.30, I didn’t get away until well past 1 o/clock, and arrived home just before 3pm.

Today is shopping at Morrisons day, which I always look forward to, because we can bring home some more of their pies.

In my spare time, of which I have a great deal, I am beavering away trying to turn the recipe book into one volume, even though the producers of the programme suggest a maximum of about 100 pages. Also, since there are a few other ads on eBay with the same name, I’m going to change that when it is done.

Easter Day for the first time ever as far as I’m aware, my birthday will be here, again. Goodness knows how I’ve survived 68 of them, but I’m still here and fully intend to enjoy many more of the good stuff, especially cruising, drinks with Alan and family reunions.

Incidentally, when I posted the last blog, I noticed that I had a follower. I don’t recall his/her name, but it’s nice to know that somebody, other than family and friends, is interested enough to check out this blog. Cheers, whoever you are.

Friday 2nd April and the weekend is almost upon us again.

Yesterday was not a particularly good day for me. Sheila went off to Loughborough with Marion, but before she did we went into Quorn for a few bits. On the way back the car started juddering at low revs, almost as if it was starved of fuel. When we arrived at the marina car par, I let the engine run for a while, and saw the revs fluctuating. They were going up and down, almost to a stalling point, then suddenly rose to about 2000, then dropped down to normal tickover. Hopefully it will now stay that way, but I’m not holding my breath, because these things seldom cure themselves.

Actually, a few weeks ago I noticed a certain hesitation when going around the first roundabout on our way to Quorn, and I even mentioned it to Fred when he carried out the service, but he didn’t notice anything untoward. It’s been getting me to Harlow and back ever since, but I don’t know that I can trust it now. We will see what happens today and, if it plays up, I’ll have to have a chat with a man that Brian knows, who has a workshop at the end of the lane.

This weekend I am also hoping to re-format this hard drive and set it up in 32 bit. Of course, I then have to re-install all my other programmes. I’ve downloaded a new backup prog which seems to give the user the ability to select which files to backup. I am hopeful of a good outcome.

Tuesday 6th April and my 68th birthday is now two days past. Nothing else has changed though with regard to the car and the laptop.

However, never say die, say I. I have had a lengthy chat with our local buff who, from the description I gave of my problem, suggested it might be hardware related. In the meantime he suggested I install XP on the partition on the hard drive. This I have tried to do but, alas, my laptop simply will not accept it. But, or Ivan has also suggested that he take this offending article away and run some diagnostic tests on it, in order to determine what is causing this beast to run slow and give me so much grief. Sadly he can’t do this until Friday.

Meanwhile, I have been online searching for an Air Flow Meter for the car. Naturally I first telephoned my nearest Alfa dealer, who quoted me £310 + VAT. Ouch! I then found a site that has umpteen million breakers on their list, and have been advised that I should receive up to 6 quotes within the next few minutes. This should be interesting!!

Returning to the subject of the recipe book, I have now managed to enter all the recipes into one volume, this despite the programme makers saying this would be impossible. I have also ensured that the Weights and Measures page appears in the TOC, which is something I failed to do before. And I have added a few more recipes, which also did not appear in the TOC. All that remains to do is to rewrite the About, Introduction and Foreword pages, at which point I can re-compile it and will be finished with this long running saga.

Wednesday 7th April and I am now back to a two volume book. This has come about due to the fact that, having asked Wifey to come up with a different title – which she did – I then proceeded to change the names of all the big files. Sadly the programme didn’t much like that idea, with the result that, upon opening the project to add information and complete the job, all the information on all the pages, had disappeared. So, I ditched that project and am now working on the new, two volume version.

What will happen when the first volume is finished, is that I shall post it on eBay and then work on the 2nd volume, which I shall post in about six months time.

Tomorrow our friendly, neighbourhood computer whiz named Ivan, will be taking this pesky laptop away to run some tests. Hopefully he will discover what is causing it to run so slowly and, at the same time, do his best not to lose any information I have on it. To be on the safe side I have copied my book files, along with a few other files, to a DVD.

When I asked Ivan how long it would take, his reply was that it could take five minutes, five hours, or five days. Ah well, so long as he gets it sorted, I’ll be happy.

As for the car, I’m still awaiting a call from the umpteen breakers yard. Meanwhile, another acquaintance on the site is going to loan me his star screwdriver set, so that I can remove the offending article and soak it overnight in petrol. Hopefully this will remove whatever is causing the air valve to stick.

Hi Folks,

It’s Thursday morning and, because Ivan will be taking the laptop away this morning for an indefinite period, I’ve decide to post now just in case you wonder where I’ve got to.

Luv n stuff from
Dave, Sheila and Rusty xx