Condorrat Killed my Car!

On Monday 21st April at approximately 1.25pm the engine on my car chucked it just as I was driving over the brow of the hill. Luckily the big scary looking lorry on my inside realised that I wasn't just some dafty who had decided to change lanes and that I needed to pull over. Fast.

After over an hour at the roadside recovery centre with numerous mechanics trying to get it started again I decided just to take it back to the garage that had been working on it at the start of April. On Thursday they agreed that it had actually died but are looking into the possibility of a reconditioned engine for it.

All in all it's not looking good for my wee car but I have had more than my fair share of miles out of it so I can't complain (too much!). Any suggestions for what happens now will be greatly appreciated. Other than the engine the car is in really good condition so it's a bit of a pain that this has happened.

The Fate of the Hindenshug

Technical failings were blamed today ahead of the launch of Nitshill's first indoor airship. The Goodyear Radio Controlled Indoor blimp suffered a small tear during inflation and subsequently failed to get off the ground. Aeronautical engineer, Mr Sutherland is thought to be 'gutted' at the malfunction and blames shoddy workmanship at the source of it. His partner, Miss McGarvey, who financed the zepellin, agrees with this diagnosis and can't believe she was duped into parting with cash for this ill-fated project.

Another Year and What Have I Done?

In my 27th year I have gone back to uni, gone on holidays to America, Amsterdam, Canada and the Isle of Wight, performed in Chicago, had a film screened in Johannesberg, been in hospital, made my way down the housing association list (grr), managed to put 2 cars off the road at the same time, stayed up very late on more than one occasion, rediscovered my fringe and my waist, tried (and liked) brown sauce, met Slash, suffered with slash and burn, grudgingly thanked the Findhorn fairies, got to grips with html and css, freaked myself out with sleep paralysis, drove down the 101 with the top down, caught a fish and ate it for dinner and had my root chakra fondled by a pensioner.

Wonder what 28 will bring?

On the Upside...

Blaze @ Bacchus was brilliant. The dancers were amazing, so much more relaxed than usual, and the DJs were great with a full dancefloor for most of the night. I think the party/performance combo is definitely the way forward for Blaze but a bigger venue will be needed for the next one...

Suggestions on a postcard please.

Enough to Drive Anyone Mad

Every now and then something, or rather some things, happen which are sent to try you. These things are usually out of your control, extremely irritating and costly. In the past few weeks it's been car trouble all round at our house. Starting with my car and the suspicious engine grumbles quickly followed by warning lights and lots of stalling. Turns out my engine has been consuming oil like it's about to go out of fashion which has resulted in parts of the engine burning out and having to be replaced, I'm sure you can feel my pain.

While my car was off the road, my parents very kindly offered me the use of their lovely (very expensive) motor to make my life easier trying to get heavy equipment to and from Dundee. To repay them I decided to replace the petrol I'd used before they asked.

Big mistake.

Instead of replacing half a tank of petrol I should have replaced half a tank of diesel!

Make that 2 cars off the road. To add insult to injury we had to be towed home by the second roadside recovery man who came out to us (although the first one was the voice of doom so I was quite glad to see the back of him - lot's of sucking in air and quotes of £4000-5000! not very helpful at all).

Thankfully the voice of doom was precisely that and the car was drained, cleaned and back on the road within a day. My car took slightly longer, however. Seven days in total and a hefty bill at the end of it just for fun. Add that to my public transport bill for the last week and it's been an expensive week all round.