Tag Archives: car

Mixed bag!

Posted on by

So mixed bag today.  Once I realised I didn’t have any appointments today, I thought I’d try and get a phone appointment to get my blood results.  Rang the surgery and asked for one, and they told me my doctor was working out of a different location today and I should call there – after it took me about 20 minutes to get through.  Still, I called the other surgery, and after another 15 minutes asked for a phone appointment – they don’t do them – but he could see me at 10:30.  So, I ended up with a visit to the GP today anyway.

The good news, from the blood test my kidney and cholesterol results are fine.  My liver results are ‘off’ but they’re always off and this time they’re off by less than they ever have been before.  My HbA1c test was 5.8.  That’s pretty good, and the biggest indicator of diabetes related health.  It could stand being a little lower, more like 5% maybe and I still need to make sure day-to-day control is maintained.

The bad news is that my urine test showed protein, which means although my kidney blood tests are ok, my kidneys are allowing protein through.  Essentially this is caused either by diabetes, or by high blood pressure or by both.  The treatment is ACE inhibitors, which means another daily tablet.  Yay me – see the NHS did get me something new for my birthday – a surprise!  I get to take them for a week and then have more blood tests so now I have another appointment next week to give more blood and then I’ll need another GP appointment 3-4 weeks after that to review the results.

In other bad news – the car needs a new rear silencer (it sounded really bad today), and the MOT is due next week (which we’d kind of forgotten).  I guess I know where the money I’ve managed to save is going this month.

But in other good news, Wickes sell mini-trip switches which are the exact right size for our old fashioned fuse box.  I bought one 5amp one (after being caught out recently buying low energy light bulbs in bulk only to find out they didn’t fit, I thought I’d start with one thing this time and expand if it was the right option) and it fits perfectly.  So hopefully if the Annoying Hallogen Light Bulbs from Hell in the kitchen trip the fuse it’s a quick switch flick to get things back online and no need to power down the entire fricking house.

So tomorrow eye test, Wednesday nurse appointment, sometime between then and next week, car in for MOT.

Then I’ll probably need a holiday to get over all this stuff.

Four Working Days to go

Posted on by

Not that I’m counting, but in four more working days, I’m on holiday for Christmas.  Only a week off, then back for the New Year but I’ll take five days.  I really need a break from it all at the moment, it’s starting to get on top of me.

Ten days until Christmas and we’re sorted.  Presents sorted, wrapped, posted or delivered as appropriate.  Well, technically I still have to wrap Grete’s presents but I enjoy tormenting her too much by leaving them lying around in the open in boxes.

We’ve already bought all the food we can get in advance which won’t perish before the 25th, so we probably need to shop again in the early part of next week, but no mammoth shops like in previous years (standing in a queue in Asda for three hours for example).  Much more relaxed Christmas this year.

Except money wise obviously, the insurance company is being annoying about the car wing mirror (like claiming we don’t have protected no-claims, which we do, and ‘suggesting’ they may write the car off for the cost of the repair which is just insane.  I suspect they’re just trying to put us off claiming).  Either way, it’s another £100-200 I can’t afford at this time of year after the dentist bills.  I don’t begrudge paying out any of the money we’ve spent on presents and gifts at all, that’s money well spent, but the timing of the other bills just makes it a bit frustrating.

Still, I’ve been in debt since the second year of my university course, so I guess another year of it in 2009 won’t kill me.  Since we got rid of the loan our debt has been pretty much consistent in size, it’s grown a little in the last few weeks, but I’ll try and make a big dent in the early part of next year.

Fingers crossed.

So, four days until holiday, ten until Christmas and sixteen until 2009.

Newcastle

Posted on by

So we went to visit my folks this weekend (mother, sister, her husband and their three kids) and it was good. Ate too much, talked about the ‘old times’ too much, and handed out some presents (no opening them until Christmas).

However, it was marred slightly when we got up Sunday morning and found someone had destroyed the plastic moulding around the passenger side wing mirror and generated enough force to pop the mirror out of the fixture so it was hanging by the wires only.  A piece of the moulding was sitting about six feet away.  The car was parked near my mum’s, in a little parking spot off the road, with the mirrors no where near traffic, but the passenger side one was next to a path.  Very annoying.

I managed to tie the mirror back on with a latex glove we had in the car boot (not telling), and it lasted long enough to get us the half mile to my sister’s place, where we borrowed some black electrical tape from my brother-in-law.  The mirror is now taped on with about 200 feet of tape, and it survived the whole journey south.  I think we’re going to call the insurance company tomorrow and found out how to proceed.

Otherwise, excellent weekend, fun with the kids, and we’ve promised to visit more in 2008.

It’s almost comical really

Posted on by

You can track my blog posts by when I’m on holiday. Once I’m back at work, they dry up. Go to work, come home, play EQ, avoid the world, that’s the plan.

Probably doesn’t sound very healthy I guess?

Anyway, here’s my half-year update for the 2 people left who still read the blog. Had two weeks holiday, felt relaxed, got back to work and now it’s nearly the weekend. Yay. We’ve landed on our feet with car stuff. The Mondeo is getting long in the tooth. Gear box is on the way out (struggles to go into first and reverse), we’ve banged it, scratched it, bumped it, dragged it, the boot arms can’t hold the boot open any more, the rust is starting to spread, the fan’s picked up a cute high pitched whine. Last MOT cost us a bit to get it through the emissions and I basically said then that the next major mechanical failure and we’d dump it. It’s dragged on another 10 months though, bless it’s huge two litre soul. Anyway, we know someone who sells cars (fairly recent thing), and they had a Renaul Migane up for sale, and we finally had a bit of spare cash, and the numbers matched up.

The Mondeo was due tax at the end of March and we basically managed to get it sorted so they took the Mondeo yesterday, we got the Migane, good timing and a decent car. It’s second hand so there’s the usual array of ‘little things’, but it’s mechnically sound and hopefully it’ll do us as long as the Mondeo did (seven years)!

For the historically minded, here’s my ‘blog’ post from the day we got the car,

[29th September 2001 – 20:31]
Ages

Once again, ages since the last update. But, here I am.

Still have a house I don’t want – are you sure you don’t want to purchase it? 3 bedroom terrace, Stockton-on-Tees?

Got my tax return in and done in the end, and in time for them to work out how much I owe, rather than having to do it myself. Their on-line system leaves a lot to be desired, only covers 1/10th of the forms and you have to work your tax out yourself. Hmm, might start scouting around for some tax-aware home-finance software at some point.

Got a new car, probably didn’t mention it previously, 2 litre Mondeo. Nicer than the previous cars, seems ok. Too expensive, but then all cars are.

Work alternates from being terrible to terrific in the space of 30 minutes, which is interesting. We’re moving desks at the moment, so Monday may be hectic.

Rented Shaft and Pitch Black on DVD, both of them quite entertaining, although Pitch Black was probably more enjoyable overall.

Lord of the Rings – the trailer looks amazing! I have very high hopes. I mailed National Amusements in the UK (they run our local cinema), asking if they had plans for Lord of the Rings, and got a very nice reply telling me that if I wanted tickets for the Harry Potter movie, I should simply purchase them at the right time. Oh well 😉

You should notice a theme with how that blog started!

Root of All Evil

Posted on by

Money, it’s true.

So we decide we’re going to go to Maelstrom, if we’re careful with cash we’ll be ok. Then we remember about the Car so that’ll hurt, but that was going to hurt anyway. And then my monitor at home starts playing up, looks like the start of a slow death, so there’s another £100-£200 we’ll need. Then parts of the bedroom start falling down (clothes rail) and I shouldn’t imagine it’ll be much to fix, but when you’re me and you’re already worried about everything[tm] and money mainly, it’s just ‘another thing’ to add to the growing list.

(Including the rotting woodwork around the front door frame on the house, and the rotting woodwork near the back door and the rotten decking).

/sigh

Room progress update

Posted on by

2 full walls painted lilac (side walls), leaving the ‘door’ wall and ‘window’ wall left to do. We had to repair some wallpaper on those walls so we didn’t do them today, and we want to paint the woodwork around the door frame (which we forgot when doing the other side of the room) so we’ll do that first.

Nearly done, feels weird to be decorating.

I think we’re basically decided to try and make it to Maelstrom as well, if we can get our booking in before the deadline.

Car MOT due in June, from the same pay packet we’ll need to use to go to Malestrom – but screw it – it’s only money (car will be at *least* £400 I think).

Cars

Posted on by

Can’t open the car bonet again, after having had it fixed already. Suspect the car is leaking oil (well, I damn well know it’s leaking oil, but denial has been helping over the last few days).

I hate cars, and they hate me, it’s simple.

Probably won’t make Andy’s wedding, which I feel crap about, but I can’t risk driving the car for 200 miles or whatever it is there and back.

Playing loads of EQ again, re-opened the second account, blah blah, addicted, blah.

Work sucks

Otherwise life normal