150,000
Posted: Thu 18 February, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Travel Leave a comment »Last night, during another daft day-trip drive, the Saab went over the 150,000 mile mark, just over three years since I bought it.
At that time, it had 74,000 miles on it, so I’ve doubled its mileage in three years. And one full year of that has been on much shorter commutes than usual, so it’s quite impressive all round.
Of course, I’ve been doing more daft long journeys and day-trips, which helps add the mileage on.
As I’ve written before, it’s been more annoying and a bit less reliable over the last six weeks or so (and how the hell are we only six weeks into 2016? I’ve done so much, I can’t believe it’s fitted into six weeks!) but hopefully all is now back to normal.
The problems have all been related – from the look of it, at least – to the turbo, and thus to the replacement turbo I had last year. I suspect that having a new and fully-working fresh turbo has perhaps added more pressure than the old (original) pipes and hoses can handle, so they’ve split or leaked, which has led to the issues.
Anyway, that’s another milestone achieved by the Saab. I hope we’ll get to the next one, whatever that may be…
VD
Posted: Sun 14 February, 2016 Filed under: Cynicism, D4D™, Domestic, Valentine's Day Leave a comment »Yet again, it’s Valentine’s Day.
And verily, I say to thee, Bah Humbug.
I know that’s not seasonally apt, but there’s no equivalent for Feb 14th. So Bah Humbug will just have to suffice.
Suitable Vehicles
Posted: Sat 13 February, 2016 Filed under: Commuting, Driving, Milton Keynes, People, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »At the moment, while my general commute is pretty short, I still see a lot of drivers, cars and idiots. As regular readers know, driving makes me think, so here’s the latest one…
Why do so many people buy unsuitable cars?
For example, what’s the point of buying high-end ‘performance’ cars, if you’re then going to drive them like an arthritic granny? It’s something I see every day, people with high-end hot-hatch and performance cars, lumped in the outside lane, and not even driving at the speed limit, let alone over it. Last night’s was a huge BMW X5 Mpower, pootling along, not making progress and generally just getting in the way.
The same applies with vehicles that are too big for the driver, or that the driver simply can’t handle/drive. When I’m at home and the school run kicks in, there’s any number of chelsea tractors that can’t fit down the road to the school itself – and if they can get down, it becomes an incredible palaver to turn the sodding things round, or park them up.
I just don’t get the point of having vehicles like that – but maybe I’m missing something.
Blistered
Posted: Fri 12 February, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Health, Single Life, Solo Dining, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »This week, I went to a restaurant that insisted on a certain level of dress-code. Nothing too epic, thankfully, but it turned out my standard footwear (Cat boots) wouldn’t have been allowed in, so I needed to buy some new dress shoes, or at least thin-soled ‘smart’ shoes.
It was semi-short notice, so I didn’t have the chance to wear them in properly – and I knew it would cause issues.
I managed to plan most of it so I didn’t have to walk as far as I normally would’ve done (had I been allowed to wear my normal, comfortable shoes) and I’m glad I did, because I still ended up with a sod-load of blisters along the way.
Weirdly, both my little toes ended up blistered, and I’m really not sure how that happened. The worst one is on one heel, about the size of a 50p piece. On that one, thank God for Compeed – their blister plasters are creepy as chuff, but bloody hell, do they work.
I know they’ll all heal up this week – it’s just a massive pain in the tits while they’re around. Such is life.
(And no, the meal wasn’t really worth the hassle of new shoes and blistered feet. Sad, but true – it was good, but not brilliant, which is galling when it’s a place that’s so highly rated all round)
Stars
Posted: Fri 12 February, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Food, Geeky, Getting Organised, Single Life, Solo Dining, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Last year, I started a project to get used to going out for restaurant meals on my own – something that had always been a bit of a “thing” in my mind. Some people don’t like going to the cinema alone, or to pubs.
Part of it became a plan to do more “high-end” eating – if I’m going to eat solo, I might as well make it decent stuff – as well as the usual things, and as a result I ended up eating in a few Michelin-starred places which I really enjoyed. (Far more than I did my previous experience with Michelin-starred places)
I’m keeping up that aim this year, with a vague plan of trying a wide range over the year, and aiming to ‘collect’ a star a month. (Not necessarily at a place each month, but at least averaging it out to one star per month)
So far this year I’ve eaten in a one-star place and a three – with a two lined up for the coming month. From there, I’ve got a couple of others booked up already, and we’ll see how things go from there.
I don’t only eat in Michelin places, by any stretch of the imagination. My tastes are varied – I’m still amused by the Scotland trip I did last year, where I ate in a Michelin-starred place on the Saturday, and a daggy little hole-in-the-wall Mexican place on the Sunday – and I never want to end up the kind of up-myself twerd who’ll only eat at high-end places. This is just a silly side-project that’s also a lot of fun, and is eminently doable. I get to experience a lot of new stuff, seeing what’s good and what isn’t.
I can’t deny, I’m fascinated by the whole thing – the levels of food, the differences (or lack thereof) between places with one, two and three stars, the differences between places with stars and those that haven’t, and the whole experience of the thing. But mainly, it’s fun – and if I’m going to have a ‘sin’, a money-drain or whatever, it’s going to be this one.
Healthy Car
Posted: Sat 6 February, 2016 Filed under: Car Repairs, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Following on from the car’s various issues over the last month, it now appears (touch wood) to be all sorted.
However, it means that in the last month it’s had
- MOT (Passed with no problem)
- Two separate broken pipes to the turbo, on different occasions – but weirdly, at the exact same location. (i.e. while driving, both times the engine management light came on at the same junction)
- 150,000 mile service, which included a couple of other small fixes too
Thankfully, it’s not been massively expensive, and the fixes have been small ones. But still, it would’ve been a nicer/easier month without having to do them. (as well as the hire of replacement cars while it was being unreliable) Such is life.
There’s one more bit that needs doing, which is booked in for a couple of weeks time (a bit annoying, as I thought they were doing it at the same time as the service, but such is life) but for now it seems like all’s well again.
Since the main bits of work, it’s had another 1,000 miles added on, so it all feels like it’s settled in again. But as always, time will tell.