You ran over a hedgehog in my car!

“Are you sure?”, I said.

Yes, because there’s a dent in the floor pan with the remains still there!

Oops.

Last week I was stunned to find, right on our doorstep, a really beautiful chunk of English countryside. We had purchased a bike rack for the car and decided to venture out for a nice bike route away from town. One of our neighbours suggested Elmstead which sounded very appealing, and then another said why not go down Flatford Mill.

The weather was the best of the year, so far, and was so pleased we managed to get out as a family – rather than being cooped up in an office with the sunshine outside!

So we loaded up the car and off we went at the mercy of TomTom – which took us there without problems. The only problem was that although Flatford Mill is sited on the South Suffolk Cycle Route B had no facilities apparent for cyclists. It didn’t matter though, as we went on a charming trip through Flatford and East Bergholt with a well deserved pint at the Carriers Arms.

The countryside is classic English rolling hills with lush-green vegetation all around – Constable had perfect material with which to work.

Game 3 branches, haven’t got any, can’t reserve one, phone every day if you want one, we only get a couple at a time.

Gamestation We have a waiting list, 40 people are on it, you can join it for a £20 deposit, estimate it would be a couple of months before you are at the head of the list.

Argos Online reserve service, 1 in stock, reserved, collected.

I took James swimming for the first time since the half-term holiday. I’m amazed how long it was since we were going every week before, but what with working away from home, the Swimathon and now moving my training to more of a running orientated regime we just haven’t got down to the pool.

He was really excited to be going, and it ended up being just the two of us as Tiff had a late night baby-sitting the night before. He has really moved on with his confidence in his own ability, and a really proud Daddy swam alongside him for his opening 6 lengths. He tehn refused to go to the training pool, and we spent the rest of the time in the deep end, messing around with jumping, diving, swimming deep underwater, etc. He now seems very natural in the water – a far cry from two years ago where he would fight you if you tried to get him in the water.

We both had a really enjoyable time – a day to remember.

I left my car too long for its service – but had it booked in for last Thursday. The bastard thing THEN decided, two days before it was going in, to finally wear out its brake pads.

Since it was now fairly (very) unsafe, I decided to take Alisons car to work. Half way to work, engine management light comes on and I can almost hear it laughing at me.

Anyway, both cars end up at the garage for most of the week and we get them back on Friday.

Guess what? Neither made it through the weekend.

On the way to swimming (no phone, minimal money, etc), I fill up at Tesco – and as I put the nozzle back on the pump I heard a running liquid sound – I look under the car to see a river of petrol running across the forecourt. Loads of fun, especially with pushing the car away from the newly formed petrol lake to allow them to make a new beach feature, mostly consisting of playpit sand bought over from the main store.

Alison’s cars engine loses all power at low revs, just when pulling away.

Hopefully, mine is all sorted now – but Alisons is still at the garage being “diagnosed”.

Our hot water gradually started failing again after about 6 weeks of pure bliss. The symptoms were the same fluctuating water temperatures that we had before. Just less extreme in both the duration of the cold swings and the intensity.

This time, I couldn’t diagnose the issue from the self-tests. So, we put up with it and put up with it until no more could be taken.

I rang up Gledhill and started up a tirade, basically explaining that they needed to start getting together a strategy for post-sales (especially post-guarantee) support. I suggested a register of Gledhill experienced plumbers, or a web based bulletin board. I got nowhere, except a phone number of a guy in Southend who may be able to help.

Someone in the office who overheard my call suggested that I phone “PG Bones Ltd” in Braintree as they were the firm doing Boilermate installations for Wimpy Homes where he lived.

So, we gave them a call, and in no time we had a guy out who sorted the problem out within half an hour. Brilliant.

The problem was that the other sensor (the DHW sensor) had also failed, so we must have had a couple from a faulty batch.

A few weeks on and everything is still fantastic, shower nirvana, lovely.

Congratulations Alison on completing your Race for Life in 29 minutes and raising about £400 for cancer research.

It was a massive achievement for you to start running again after a hiatus of over 15 years and get up to this level with only a couple of months training.

Well done.

I found out why the new sensor was reading “error”. The plumber had connected it to the wrong point on the main board! It is curious that the system should work better when a sensor isn’t connected than when a faulty sensor is connected.

Anyhow, I rewired the sensor to the correct point and everything is now working fine. It only required 4 plumber visits to diagnose the problem, change the sensor and wire it up incorrectly!

Hopefully, I can enjoy my shower in peace now!

We had a great time on Saturday down at the Brampston Sports Centre in Witham, where GKR held their Christmas Party this year.

It was brilliant!

The session was in three parts; a kata seminar, a kumite seminar and a fun session with party food and demonstrations of various martial arts extras.

As per the grading, there were plenty of senseis around to guide and advise, and the massive group of a couple of hundred students were split up by grade and given very focused attention on fine tuning their techniques. I particularly enjoyed the kata session and learned a few pointers to help me progress. The kumite training was limited by our lack of mits and pads.

The highlight, of course, were the demonstrations where we saw classic displays of tile breaking with the fist, bunkai, staffs, and other demonstrations of conditioning. The eye-watering conditioning demonstrations were the ones that had the biggest audience attention, particularly where one chap invited another to kick him in the groin area as hard as he could! My favorite was the demonstrations of using the staff ( bo? ).

We will be definitely be going to other special events. Great fun.

We may be getting somewhere.

On Monday the diagnostics showed that the PHE return temperature sensor was in error. Parts Center stock these, and I got a replacement for £20.

Yesterday two different plumbers came around to attempt to fit the part. The first couldn’t figure out how to isolate the sensor from the water pressure, so couldn’t carry out the switch over. The second took one look at the system and said he wasn’t qualified to touch it!

Today, a third plumber came out and phoned Gledhill for advice. The procedure was very straight forward (isolate the PHE pump using the valves, turn off the mains water, and drain the small header tank using the drain point next to the sensor).

We now have working hot water – but the sensor is still reading an error! The next step is to replace the main board, which I will only do if the problems resume again.

I have just found out that our next door neighbour is having exactly the same problems.