Well, what a week we've had.
I'll go back a bit - a while ago I had breakdown - I'll re-phrase that - my BMW broke down. The clutch stopped working, so after I got the bike home, I started to strip it down until I needed a special tool. Now the story of the special tool is this, when I had a BMW some years ago, I needed this tool, and when I found out how much they were, I made my own by grinding a socket to fit the required hole. Of course, I've seen this socket hundreds of times since, but when you need a thing it's never there is it? After an afternoon and two fruitless evenings searching ever more unlikely places I had given up on ever finding it again, so on my way home on Thursday I called at Webster's tool shop to buy a new socket. Only when I got there it was almost as expensive as the tool I was trying to avoid buying, so I left it there.
This brings me to Thursday evening. As I approached home, I spotted smoke, and thought "Oh no, now what? Am I going to be able to get past this car on fire. But no such luck, our meter box was on fire this time. Apparently the council had been down to see John McGovern about the new gate he had put in his fence, and because he was upset at having to apply for planning consent for it, he decided that as we had reported him (in his mind - we had done no such thing) he would "teach them a lesson" and one petrol soaked rag and a match later - viola one blaze.
Of course if I had not called about the socket, I would probably have either seen him do it, or prevent him, by just being there. But no such luck.
The Fire Brigade were very good, they made short order of the fire, and found the remains of the rag, and it was they who called the police to the scene - not that they were any use - and Norweb came out to make the thing safe, which was already done, because the fuse had gone when the cables shorted in the sub station.
So we had a generator for that night, and the following morning I had an interview for my new job (more on that later) so I left Keith putting a new door on the box, Norweb having said that we had to make the box secure before they would put a new meter in it. When I returned, I immediately went out again to get the cable and stuff sorted out to repair it.
The amount of damage was such that I needed to replace the cable where it entered the box underground due to the fire having totally destroyed the cable as far as the soil under the box. I could not belive the cost of these bits and pieces - the original stuff cost less than £20 for the fuse, switch and metal box to terminate the cable, but now it was almost £100. When I got home I had to dig out the front of the box to reveal the cable and pull it through, saw some off and send Lorraine to get some new to match. Meanwhile I went off to work for the afternoon. While there Keith rang to say that the minimum length of cable was eight metres at £71 (we only wanted three metres) - typical.
So I spent all day Saturday working in the hole and the box splicing the new cable on to the old and connecting everyting inside the box. Norweb had put a new meter in the box ready, so as soon as I was able, (about 1pm) I got Lorraine to ring to ask to be connected. The man from Norweb was rushed off his feet, and he got to us at 4pm. It only took 15 minutes to connect us and he went away by 4.20.
I had the evening off, and took Lorraine to an Indian restaurant for tea (at 11pm) and it was delicious.
On Sunday it was time to catch up on jobs that I needed to do for me, first the new shock absorbers for the Kawasaki.
Of course a simple job like this has to have it's share of problems doesn't it? One bolt had got glued into place by rust and had to have it's head and part of the thread ground off. Nothing is ever simple, the wheel had to come off to get the grinder into place. The replacement bolt was too long, so that had to be ground off and dressed to accept the nut.
When it came time to line up the brackets which had got bent during the removal of the old shock absorbers, the screwdriver that I was using decided to snap. I don't know what the world is coming to, I really don't, you use a tool for ten years and then one day it decides to rip your hand open and then carry on up your arm to gouge a lump out of that as well. So I carried on, dripping onto the ground, my jeans, the bike and just about everywhere else too. Then when I started on the other side, my other screwdriver snapped too. Victor Meldrew sprang immediately to mind. So now my other hand was cut in two places - I thought, this is going to make washing fun. So that meant that the surgical gloves I was wearing to keep my hands clean were both totalled, so bang goes the keeping clean idea as well.
Anyway, I finally got the new parts on the bike and did a road test (you always forget to tighten something don't you?) Well this time it was the adjuster for the chain, I only remembered it at teatime, and when I looked, yes it was almost on the point of falling out like it did last time. So road test over, time for lunch.
After lunch it was time to get the gearbox out of the BMW. Remember the lost socket/special tool? Well that had turned up, so I was really glad I didn't buy a new one. So after undoing the last two nuts, it was time to wrestle the gearbox out. It only took about an hour all told, and when it was out, I discovered that the clutch itself was OK, it turned out to be the actuating rod that had got worn beyond repair, so now I need a trip to Huddersfield to sort it out.
As I was finishing this job, Keith and Martin drove up to the gate and when they got there all h*ll broke loose with Keith shouting "get the police - get the fire brigade!" at the top of his lungs.
Some kind person had decided to place the remains of a Ford Escort across the outer gateway, totally blocking us in. Martin was incensed - we got the pickup and a chain and pulled the car in, then drove round it and pulled it out of the gate and, intending to put it across John McGovern's house gate, kept on going. Unfortunately the Escort fell apart and ran into the ditch, sticking out into the road. This meant it was a problem, but only to people in lorries etc. Not us. So we left it there.
Of course the police turned up some two hours later and went to ask McGovern to move it, so he did, he pulled it out into the road and left it there, totally blocking us in again. Except that we could of course go roung the back of the yards and get out that way, but other people don't know about this, and they ended up leaving their cars by the cricket club and walking down after clambering over the Escort.
We just left it, it got moved on Monday morning.
Anyway, things seem quiet for now.... watch this space.
On to more pleasant things though. I went for the interview and met a couple of very nice men who had decided to employ me before the interview, all that needed to be sorted was starting date and salary, so those formalities out of the way, we shook hands and I went away clicking my heals.
I am going to be a Field Service Engineer, looking after PCs and peripherals in a chain of 97 chemist shops spread over the North West, and into North Wales, and Yorkshire, and one errant one in Birmingham. Driving a little diesel van all over the place.
By year end they hope to have 150 shops and next year will be a rollout of Winblows2000 which means all new PCs including the 100 in house PCs as well. Then at the end of next year there is a projected move into new premises, which means moving the in house boxes and the resultant networking experience.
So I am looking forward to the experience. I start on August 20th and I'll keep you informed of progress.
posted by Alan 11:27 AM[edit]