Alex's Adventures on the Infobahn - car

Tenuous Grip

2010-02-22T21:25:00+00:00

We have just returned from a weekend in the Peak District, ostensibly for walking although we stayed on for extra loafing and a Goose dinner on Sunday. The event is a regular birthday celebration/mass catering event held in various youth hostels near various peaks over the years. This was my second time attending and it was most agreeable.

The walking element of the weekend included climbing a snow covered Kinder Scout. Unlike previous years I wasn't failed by poor fitting shoes or a particularly steep ascent so enjoyed the fresh air all the more. I can't help feeling the large amount of walking I do around Cambridge is essentially useless as a preparation for anything with slopes. Snowden is currently the next beast to conqueror although schedules are starting to fill up.

The journey home did start with a mini-Volkswagen adventure. The road we had followed on the way looked clear the way back. Indeed most of the rolling hills were carefully navigated by following the clear black tire tracks. Unfortunately the final climb up the highest local hillock had a few un-thawed regions which led to a lose of grip before cresting the hill. A vaguely concerning controlled skid backwards as gravity re-asserted itself over momentum eventually rested the car across the whole road. Luckily the road was used by locals with slightly more appropriate 4x4s. In the end we were unable to tow the car up the hill so I tenderly reversed it to the bottom of the hill before a final 3 point turn to take us back the way we came. The locals where very nice about helping but I'm not sure if they were exchanging looks with each other judging the silly southerner in his impractical car. There are signs in the Peaks that instruct you to follow the damn diversion signs and ignore what the Sat-Nav tells you to do, I suspect I fell into the same admonished category.

Ready to Go

2009-09-01T12:13:00+01:00

I dropped my car off at the body-shop for it's cosmetic surgery today. It will be there for 8-9 working days. On a completely unrelated note we have a completion date now which is in the scarily close sub-fortnight range. Hopefully we'll be moved into our new house the weekend after next. This means I won't be going to the final Maelstrom of the year. Hopefully we shall have the car back in time for the move, I don't think my computer desk will fit on the push-bike ;-)

A Bad Week for Cars

2009-07-28T19:04:00+01:00

On the back of previously mentioned car issues it's existence was topped off with an unplanned impact with the side of the road yesterday.

We had been enjoying a meal with S&J who are providing the venue for the wedding. The drive back was through some rather wet A roads (not helped by the non-functional driver side window) and we were caught unawares on a rather slippery S bend. Mercifully there were no other cars on the road when we executed the skid, bounce and spin manoeuvre. The final result was a large chunk of the road-side caught up underneath the car and 3-4 dents in the driver side where the car lost an argument with the hedge. The wing mirror was also decapitated by the greenery although as it was dark we never found the detached pieces. We were both a little shaken but pretty much unhurt.

Last night's cryptic status update wasn't actually referring to the wedding costs but my initial assessment of the damage once we got home. Luckily the fully comprehensive insurance will cover everything above our rather high excess but it's still obviously an annoyance. Still the most important thing was we walked away from accident and as pilots like to point out the ability to walk away is considered a success condition.

Inauspicious

2009-07-28T01:18:00+01:00

Maelstrom was fun to a degree but I was plagued by a number of OOC occurrences which slightly marred our enjoyment of the event.

We arrived on site pretty much without incident and as per usual we opened the car windows as we handed over our tickets. After finding somewhere to park (having car next to OOC tent is a great idea BTW) and erecting the tent I went to lock up the car. On trying to close the driver side electric window it managed about half the full travel before something twanged and the whole window shot down into the hidden guts of the door, never to return. I was able to patch up the window with some black bin bags before the distant storms arrived but it was an inauspicious start to the day.

As we were camping Fliss gave me some of my birthday presents early. These included a fantastic stow-able sleeping bag with a rather funky silk lining and a "self-inflating" camp mat which will be a lot more portable for our trip up Kilimanjaro next year. The mat itself works better than any other I've used at insulating the body from the coldness of the ground. However it seems I'm not really designed for the relative solidness of the floor. By Sunday morning my back had decided to throw it's metaphorical arms up in disgust as I struggled for about 5-10 minutes to move from all fours to some sort of erect posture. I'm not ready to dismiss the mat completely as my situation may not have been helped by a relatively sedentary event.

All this sudden invalidity meant Fliss became responsible for all the packing of the car and the eventual drive home. On the drive home it very quickly became apparent the jury rigged replacement of black bin bags with cling-film wasn't going to hold up to motorway speeds. The final result was Fliss having to endure an open window while driving the car home while I was almost permanently apologetic for having put her through the ordeal.

Once we got home a long bath did ease my back a bit but it put the kibosh on cycling to work today. Every day I miss of work is a day I don't get paid. However we are still off to our wedding venue this afternoon to do some planning type activities. Tomorrow I drop the car off to get the windows fixed and we are off to another wedding next weekend. Hopefully we have exhausted the current run of bad luck although we are still waiting for the bank to get back to us about the mortgage.