I must have been busy

I thought to myself, it's a while since I've updated; I've been reading but for the most part been too busy or too tired (or most commonly both) to get around to actually updating. Thing is, my life has become insanely normal. I go to work (knackering, but exactly what I want to do); I come home and do DIY and I talk to bluwyngz. I've got tons of work that needs doing, bills that need paying, forms that need to be sent off, and I struggle through doing them.

Brick continues to ferry me to and from work; although the oil leak does seem to be getting worse, which is faintly concerning. I shall soon be getting him steam cleaned so we can work out where the engine oil is leaking *from*; and from there hopefully work out how to fix it.

Kathryn came back from Romania and we had a fantastic time together; she was incredibly patient when the batteries in my mom's EV died, and we had to come back on the back of a recovery truck. We went out and picked Raspberries; which I need to cook today; and we made it out to another bit of Slough area green space. We were also quite homey, and went to B&Q (think Home Depot) to choose the paint for the bathroom (and the lights for the kitchen).

But really, while my life has been mostly delightful; the busy hasn't been that exciting :)

At least, unless you want to hear about my progress with taking blood, or with giving IVs....

Demonstrable progression

So, I mentioned the oil leak, but I didn't mention the coolant. The coolant in the Viva appears to be made by a careful process of combining iron oxide and stale water, and then leaving it standing for; say; 5 or 10 years.

This is obviously less than ideal. i have, in fact, since I had the car, been intending to flush the cooling system with some coolant flush and then change it for nice fresh shiny coolant. I may even do it twice.

However, doing so before the trip to the Lakes whilst it seems in many ways a great plan (big stressful journey) invites my paranoia gremlin to pop out. See, last time I took Rebecca to the lakes, and just prior to the trip I flushed the coolant. The car then developed a leak (presumably some shifting bit of rust free'd it) and then in desparation I threw rad-weld in. Rad weld combined the remaining rust to clog up an already knackered coolant line and I got a very dead engine.

So, paranoia says 'don't fiddle with it, it's working'. So I've decided not to. Who can say if it's the right decision. But since the coolant will probably have to be drained for the oil-leak-solution then I may save it for then.

Completely unrelated to that is the fact that I made Raspberry and Apple crumble. Well. We'll see if I made it, if it's hideous I've just wasted nearly 500g of Raspberries. Sadly since they were picked at the weekend, quite a lot of them had gone manky. I think actually it's because a few of them were just beyond perfectly ripe; and having turned into moudlyberries they were in close contact with many other berries. In the end I think almost 1/4 were inedible. Or at least, I chose not to trust them. Hence it becoming Raspberry and Apple crumble.

I'm just waiting on dinner coming out of the oven; then the oven needs to cool down a bit; and then I shall have pie!

Well, crumble.

It's weird to cook after so long not cooking. And nice. I miss having a nice kitchen; but frankly I've got sod all to complain about really. In fact there's been some good house news; the woodworm is apparently not active enough to be worth treating. He reckoned it's an old infestation with some residual activity; basically. And that all houses this age will have that kind of level of activity; most of it where you can't see. Given the doubled joists, it's not worth treating it, apparently. I may treat the bits I can still get to,  anyhow.

I've also started grouting. I'd forgotten that I really don't enjoy grouting much. How I could forget this I'm not sure, but I had. Still, about 1/3rd of the floor is grouted, the last tile is cut and down... So, all is good.