Today I started on repairing the area ‘twixt walls and ceiling, where formerly there was coving. But before I could start on that I had to clean the areas where I would be applying the plaster.
These voids are massive!
I’m doing so yet more plaster crumbled away from the brickwork. In the picture above I’m talking about the left half of the image. What had initially been a single course of exposed bricks – or one and a half, to be precise (as on the right) – suddenly became to courses.
Some of the new post-cleanup debris.
Having already swept and hoovered yesterday, this new crumblage requires another tidy up.
Endless clearing up!Working in very cramped conditions.
I’m working in a very tiny space, in a small room, that’s filled with stuff. Not ideal. Still, you gots to do what you gots to do!
This morning we were at B&Q, in Wisbech, getting stuff for this job. So back home, I mixed me up a bucket o’ mud, and slathered it on. ‘Twas far from easy. Esp’ where the gaps were very large. But I built up lots of thick goopy layers, and gradually got there.
It ain’t pretty!
And presto! The bulk of the plastering is now done. Tomorrow I’ll go over it all, and try to neaten it up. The main thing is that all the various planes now meet. The next step is to try and make them flat and 90°, etc.
LATER ON…
Oh my Lourde…
After an evening delivering for Amazon, I finally got home, and this was how my work was looking… the floor’s a right mess.
Oh my Gourd…
The walls are a right mess…
Oh my, oh my…
And my ‘work’ is itself, a mess! But it is at least still up. And, although I didn’t test it, for solidity, I reckon tomorrow I’ll be able to do some sanding and a second coat, to beaten things up a bit. Or a lot, even?
Some while ago our neighbour alerted me to some footage he’d caught on his home security videos, showing some villains fiddling with several cars on our street, inc. mine!
Rear view; exhaust attached by sensor lead!
At the time we’d concluded – and confirmed with a neighbour further down the road – that these miscreants were thieving catalytic converters. One of the neighbours further down the road had actually arrived home as the bastards were leaving his front drive.
Look how the thieves cut/compressed the pipe!
They were so quickly down and back up again by my car that I assumed they’d decided against bothering to try and take mine. I was wrong! But it took a while for the issue to develop; gradually my exhaust system grew noisier and noisier.
It turns out that some cunts do this ‘professionally’, and use a tool called the jaws of life* (or something like that?) to snip through pipes and noiselessly remove CATs.
Sheets and tools in the road, trying to disconnect the sensor.
Anyway, as I got into my car today, to go to do a delivery route for Amazon, the whole exhaust system was roaring and rattling like an emphysemic dragon. I barely got 10 yards, and had to stop, get out, and look under the car. Almost all of the exhaust between where it exits the engine bay, and the box at the rear of the car, was hanging loose.
The engine side of the ‘snip’.The rear of the car, and the other break.
Even worse, it transpired that it was solely connected to the car by the wiring of a lambda oxygen sensor. After several hours spent getting the car up on jacks, with thoughts of zip-tying it back in place, which didn’t work, I tried to remove the sensor, where it joins the exhaust.
Second view of the rear break.
But that was seized solid; so, no dice! It then became a question of finding out how to disconnect the other end of the sensor wiring. This, it turned out, disappeared up into the bodywork of the car. It took a lot of hard work, both on the car and researching online, to finally crack that conundrum.
And all of this in very cold, muddy, drizzly conditions, with the car protruding several feet into a busy road. Gaaargh!!! I had to cancel the Amazon delivery shift, and forego any lunch. And I spent literally three or four hours doing all this. It’s the sort of thing one ought to be able to do in minutes if, A) one knows the anatomy of the vehicle intimately, and B) has the right tools.
The clip end of the sensor cable. Inaccessible!
Once I’d finally and mercifully got the damaged and broken section of exhaust off, I stuck it in the passenger side of the car. Doing all of this did teach me more about the motor. And I took the photos that illustrate this post, which I sent to various MX5 parts folk, and potential repair garages.
A YouTuber’s vid’ located the sensor clip junction, inside the passenger side interior.
It was thanks to the photographic evidence that I learned my CAT definitely had been stolen. The most damning and conclusive evidence was how the exhaust had clearly been snipped, and compressed, just around where the CAT ought to have been.
So not only do I have to replace 80% of the exhaust assembly. I also have to get a new catalytic converter. I got some quotes on parts and work. And it’s a nightmare, frankly. Because, as ever, I’m stone broke.
Finally! Unclipped. Allowing exhaust removal.
Still, in the past we’ve always battled through and found a way, even if – as with the cam-belt episode – I had to do the sourcing, buying and fitting of everything myself. This time I can’t see myself doing the installation. Partly this is due to the time of year; having to try and do such work out in the front drive or the main road? It’s just too cold and wet!
The exhaust, sat in the passenger side.
* As used by fire crews to rescue passengers trapped in crash-damaged vehicles.
PS – This is the YouTube video that enabled me to finally locate and uncouple the sensor:
I’m not a big fan of selfie culture. But that said, sometimes it can have a value for me. In this post I’m musing on this latest bout of ill health I’m currently undergoing. The pic above was taken just now, still in bed, at about 6.45am.
Yesterday, feeling somewhat better.
The next pic in this series is me on the lounge couch yesterday, feeling substantially better. I think it shows! And the latest pic, at the top, is therefore a bit depressing; looks like I’ve been crying all night! I haven’t. But I have had a rough night of neck pain and extreme headaches, in addition to the Strep A throat.
This was Saturday night, in bed at Hannah’s.
And the third pic, the furthest back in time of the three? That reflects my annoyance, more than the physical toll illness is having. Whereas the image right at the top captures both, to my mind. Sometimes when you’re unwell you hit a plateaux of being sick of being sick. I’m there!
During the first three days of this throat infection I went from ‘business as usual’ on the Friday, which I’m assuming is the day I caught it, whilst teaching in two primary schools, to a 50/50 mix: bed rest most of the time, but still doing Amazon Flex delivery shifts (Saturday and Sunday), to more or less complete bed rest, yesterday and today (Monday and Tuesday).
Yesterday I had a blood test at the doc’s in the morning, and I cooked dinner in the evening. But outside of those two things, I was mostly in bed, sleeping or reading.
This could be very useful!
Today I ought to be working on a Grade 7 drum piece I’m doing with a pupil (Tower of Power’s terrific ‘What Is Hip’). And I’d also ideally like to do a shift for Amazon, as I really need the income! But from a health and well-being perspective I probably ought to be having complete rest. Hmmm!?
I’ve had a sore throat for a few days now. Symptoms are very Strep A like, and I believe that’s running amok in the UK. Teaching in schools, I guess, may make me more likely to be exposed? It seems more virulent amongst the very young. And I teach in two primary schools.
But I can’t find any particularly helpful maps of known cases. Something I thought might shed light on whether this might be Strep A or something else. And then there’s the various varieties: Strep A, Scarlet Fever and IGAS may all be caused by the same bacteria, but (I believe?) each manifests in slightly differing ways. So, for example, I don’t have any rashes, so I don’t have Scarlet Fever.
… and Scarlet Fever.
But without proper medical advice – ironically I had an over-50s NHS health check last Monday, before I got this damned sore throat – which is increasingly hard to get as the Tories grind the NGS into the ground, how do I know what’s causing it, or indeed even what ‘it’ is!?
BTW, the info-graphic map images I’ve used here are from my researches, and usually the webpage (if not always the image itself) adds more info, such as when the statistics were gathered, or the time period they cover, etc.
I guess I was after this sort of thing, for our area.
What I really wanted was a map with ‘pins’, something rather like the above image, but showing cases in my living/teaching zones. Maybe then it’d be easier to see if there were recorded cases where I’m teaching, for example? Anyhoo, calling 111 has (so far) got me nowhere.
Teresa and I are back to childminding at my sister’s. And we’ve been roped into an extra night over, as my mum backed out of her usual Sunday commitment. She did so partly due to dad having Covid (so I hear!?), and me having this sore throat.
I also booked two Amazon delivery shifts: one today, another tomorrow. Todays was a real nightmare. First off they had approx 30% more stuff to deliver – 30 bags as opposed to he usual 20 or so – than I normally have, and yet supposedly to be delivered in the same (two hour) time frame!
My Flex shift today was hellish!
On top of this, even before I’d left, the scanning and naming/numbering of the deliveries didn’t tally correctly. There were extra bags, numbers/names/codes didn’t match, and, well, more on this later…
I’d also very much like to opt out of making any deliveries to Cambridge. Most trips to Cambridge involve dropping deliveries to at least one ‘block of flats’ or student halls of residence. In theory I can contact the customer. In practice this doesn’t always work. Today I had a whole slew of Chinese students in multiple occupancy residences , none of which had sufficient info to locate the customer, that made the entire shift a total nightmare.
Supposedly 2-4pm, I didn’t finish till 5pm. And when I did I had two bags of undelivered stuff left over! I had to call the Flex driver support line several times. To their credit, they do try to help, and sometimes they even actually sort things out. But, as ever in modern life, there’s far too much interacting with automated robotic systems. And they can’t always resolve stuff satisfactorily.
I anticipate negative feedback from Amazon on this delivery run. One particular order initially took over 45 minutes to ‘complete’ (or so I thought), putting me seriously behind schedule. And in the end this was – or so it seems – the order to which the two extra mystery bags that were left over belonged to. So adding that in, as well, at the end, means that one stop accounted for about an hours work!
How all this makes me feel!
Add to this my sore throat, the bigger than usual load, that for much of the shift it was cold and very rainy, and, nearly all of it being in town, there was heavy traffic congestion to negotiate… Bah! Not fun at all. For the most part I do enjoy doing Amazon Flex deliveries. Not so today! As already mentioned, I’d like to decline any further delivery trips to Cambridge.
Back ‘home’, at Hannah’s in Northstowe, I’m mainly staying in bed, as I don’t feel at all well. The right hand gland in my neck is swollen and painful, swallowing hurts, and I’m on a diet of liquids, paracetamol and lozenges.
Missed (again!). Bloody awful.
Thought a bit of snooker might help. So I watched the Trump vs Bingham Masters semi-final. Trump won, 6-1. But, my sweet lard, was it ropey! It was excruciating at times. I like fast heavy scoring snooker. This was low breaks, tactical grinding (and wailing and gnashing of teeth), and, frankly, quite boring . Both players playing well below their best.
We just got back home, from childminding duties at my sister’s. As we occasionally do, we stayed a second night. I was exhausted after an evening shift delivering for Amazon, and then sharing a bottle of wine with Teresa and Hannah.
Amazon were taking the piss royally yesterday, on two fronts: first I arrived a few minutes late (2-3, or thereabouts) for a midday shift. The crappy Flex app then proceed to load so slowly that by the time it was up and running I’d ‘missed your [my!] slot’!
So I returned later the same day, and did an evening sesh. I try not to do these, on account of it being harder and more stressful in the dark of winter evenings/nights. And herein was the second Amazon piss-take:
Actually this was a double-barrelled piss fest: first I had an order ‘to be delivered no later than 4pm’. Yet it was the second delivery of about eight or so, and I didn’t start collecting the items, never mind delivering them, until 4pm, when my shift officially commenced!
I told the recipient that I’d have bent the laws of physics to deliver to him by 4pm, if it lay within my powers. And, if he was unhappy – fortunately he was a jovial and understanding chap, and was absolutely fine – please take it up with Amazon, and don’t blame me!
But the real piss take the second, was the sheer distances they had me travelling. I started in Cambourne, then went to Royston, then Potton, then Sandy, then home. I reckon that the fuel costs of this run will prob’ have accounted for half my earnings.
Lobster, a very hirsute, handsome and charming chap!
But my main prompt for this post was returning to our frigidarium home. Our car was plenty warm en-route home. With two of us in the the confines of a little MX5, plus the car heating, we were very cosy. The house was 8°C, according to our wall mounted central-heating doodad (thermostat/controller?).
The pic atop this post is how I got myself up to brave a trip to our littlest room! Which used to be an outside privy, when the house was built. And today feels like it still is! I was worried my bowels would refuse to open, so damn chilly was it!
I’m now enjoying that most plebeian of pleasures, a pot noodle. Pornography for the palette, granted. But warm and flavoursome. It maketh me happy!
