New flooring; long distance walkers; breakdown cover

New hallway flooring and built in mat area

As of January this year, we have super new flooring in the living room and hallway at the house (and the same purchased for the dining room, though not laid as yet). We’ve subsequently moved Ruth’s bookcase into the living room and I have to say it does round off the room quite nicely. We managed to have a bit of a purge of books and a consignment of some others to the attic. Spirited little Harley has now mastered the new flooring and is able to come skipping into the living room of an evening, though Catherine Howard hasn’t.

In January, went on my first walk with the Beds, Bucks and Northants section of the Long Distance Walkers Association, after joining on Matthew’s recommendation and in a fit of New Year enthusiasm. Mustered with Hai, Matthew and a cluster of LDWA members (a few around my age, but most of them older) in the car park of The Caldecotte on a particularly awful morning of cold sleety rain. The walk leader had changed the route on account of the weather, so in the end we ended up going for a walk up around Caldecotte and Willen Lakes and Campbell Park – pleasant, though mainly territory that I know quite well already so perhaps not as interesting as it could have been.

The weather got progressively worse as the walk went on, becoming a semi-blizzard at one point. We huddled in a bandstand by Willen Lake to eat our sandwiches. Was glad of the flask of hot tea I’d brought with me. A brisk pace was set by the group members; I certainly felt well exercised afterwards. Total distance 14 miles.

Mustering at the start. Me third from left

Lunchtime sleet

 By the MK Rose. Me centre of pic with red rucksack. Think that was Hai on the left

Our group in Campbell Park. Me second from right

Walk route, showing start and end by Caldecotte Lake

Being a cautious type, have had breakdown cover for all of my driving life, albeit some of it as an extra name on Ray’s cover. Always with the AA until this year, when Ruth persuaded me that the AA was expensive and I should shop around. Indeed the renewal quote I got was quite expensive, but with hindsight what I should have done was phone them assertively and ask if they could do me a better offer. However, didn’t do this and Ruth found me a – certainly much cheaper - quote from Green Flag via a price comparison site, which I took up, albeit with some reservations about how many vans Green Flag actually have, whether they are indeed a proper breakdown service etc etc.

Having done the above, irony happened. A week before my AA cover was due to expire, I had occasion to call the AA. Started to back out of parking space at the OU and immediately suspected that all was not right with the car on account of the loud banging coming from its front end. After attempting to inspect car myself for trapped branches etc, gave up and used the AA’s delightful app to report a breakdown. How much simpler is that than in the old days, when you had to ring and attempt to explain where you were (well, and find a phone as the first step, in my earlier driving days). Got a pretty much immediate response from the app to say someone was on their way, and was able to track the progress of the AA vehicle from its starting point (somewhere near Bradwell Abbey) to where I was. AA man quickly diagnosed a broken nearside suspension (coil) spring and informed me that it was “a recovery job”.

Quite a long wait subsequently for the recovery vehicle, though once he'd arrived the nice driver did allow me to sit in his cab to warm up. Warned me that the hooking up of my car and towing it to the garage of my choice was going to be a slow process, so left him with my keys and called a taxi home.

Called Anglos the following morning to double-check that they did indeed have my car. The resulting bill to replace the spring was around £120, which I didn't consider too bad. Have actually never had to be towed before, so not bad going over the course of c. 30 years. The AA man theorised that broken springs are often caused by speed humps, though I blame all the damn potholes.

After this positive eleventh hour experience with the AA, am now with Green Flag. Huh. Thankfully the car has been fine so far, but my experience of GF has already been tainted due to the fact that, as I took out my cover via a price comparison site, I don't have access to the Green Flag smartphone app. As I had been considerably impressed by my first use of the AA's app, this is extremely annoying. Haven't quite decided whether to cancel my cover and crawl back to the AA.

Tablets; vinyl; Hammer

We begin with the joyous news that bedroom 3 has now been plastered. As it’s now almost four years since the destruction work began, its gradual recovery is almost bringing a tear to my eye. Tasks remaining: painting; getting a blind for the window; replacing the light fitting with something new and cheap; replacing the carpet, again with something new and cheap. Ruth has been starting off her garden leave from HCT by sanding down the woodwork in the room with a cunning little electric sander that she purchased in Homebase the other weekend.

Another Information Office meal out on the 24th, this time at Strada in the Hub. The snow and ice seemed to have put some people off, as we turned out to be a group of half a dozen core enthusiasts. Had a pasta dish with chilli and some sort of sausage.

Put my day at the house with the plasterer on the 25th to good use by purchasing a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, which I briefly attempted to justify as some sort of necessity, but it is in fact simply a delightful expensive toy. After checking availability at John Lewis and PC World, who were both sold out, I gave up and ordered one from Amazon, for next day delivery. It duly arrived, before 1pm as agreed, the following day. Pondered whether one of the reasons for the demise of the high street could be that Amazon kicks the pants off it.

Took my car for a long-overdue clean (inside and out) the other Sunday. Was once again duped by the head man at Nisi into paying extra for the £20 ‘gold service’, but I felt guilty at the level of griminess. He did indeed look slightly hacked off by the time I returned 25 minutes later to pay and collect the car. Given that the car will soon get dirty again given a) necessity of parking under tree at MK flat and b) impending visit to parents’, I took two pictures of it parked outside the house.

Made it to Alison’s house in Spencers Wood last Thursday to discuss Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Alison had amassed some very organised thoughts about the book and had actually made some notes, unusually for our group which prefers to express itself in disorganised random outbursts amid slurping of cakes and wine. I hadn’t been greatly taken with the book – perhaps because of not setting much store by the idea of a comforting afterlife awaiting me – but several of the others appeared to have enjoyed it, except Helen, who, bless her, hates most things.

Drove down to my parents’ house on Friday morning after a brief congratulate/commiserate with Ruth on now being (hopefully temporarily) a woman of leisure. Arrived in time for lunch and spent some time in the afternoon with Dad on some family tree software from www.ancestry.co.uk, trying to figure out the best way to print out a chart of the Irish relatives, as Dad is hoping to get some of them to fill in some gaps. Also spent some time with Mum going through a large pile of vinyl that she had routed out of the sideboard. We listened to bits of a few records, including an old single of ‘This Here’ by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, a first for me but evidently something Mum used to listen to. Here’s a recording on YouTube. Put all of the records on slightly nervously, not having manipulated a turntable in some years – the sound quality was pretty good though, despite a bit of crackling, which just gave them a nice air of authenticity.

We took advantage of some nice weather on Saturday by going for a walk near Cwmyoy, including scaling the Twyn y Gaer hillfort – summit cairn in pic above. Dad pointed out the ‘Cwmyoy slip’ – an old land-slip that resulted in the top part of a hill separating itself and coming to rest some way further down the hill. I had visions of it hurtling dramatically down the hillside burying innocent villagers, but Dad noted that it wouldn’t have moved quite that quickly. Local tradition, apparently, has it that it was caused by a terrible earthquake during Christ's crucifixion. After the walk we called in to the Queen’s Head Inn hoping to get lunch, but discovered that they weren’t serving any on account of the rugby – indeed, they were just switching the match on as we drained our drinks and left. We got lunch instead at The Crown at Longtown, who didn’t have the rugby on.

In the evenings we watched two more films from the substantial Hammer box set that my parents got for Christmas: on night 1, The Witches with Joan Fontaine – OK but I think I dozed off at crucial moments towards the end. On night 2 The Plague of the Zombies – much livelier and actually not bad. Mum emailed me on Monday to say that they had made it a triple on Sunday night with Prehistoric Women, which had apparently been as bad as the title suggested. I think I remember reading on the insert that they had made it in order to re-use the sets and costumes from One Million Years B.C.

Minor piece of drama on the drive back to Milton Keynes on Sunday when I pulled into Cherwell Valley service station intending to get a cup of tea and became aware of smoke billowing from under my car’s bonnet. Parked really quite quickly and turned the engine off; was then not quite sure whether one is supposed to open the bonnet, but had vague (and doubtless over-dramatic) concerns about having face burnt off by a sheet of flame, so called the AA instead. Evidently they had had an operative already in the car park, as an AA man and van appeared at my elbow practically as I was hanging up the phone. Turned out the cap had come off the oil reservoir with the result that pretty much the whole of the engine and the inside of the bonnet was coated in smoking oil. He wiped this off while chatting amiably about Radio 4 and audio books. I had topped up the oil in the week but couldn’t quite believe I had been absent-minded enough to leave the cap off, but the man reckoned that it must have been loose and popped off during the journey. He observed that he’d attended plenty of people who’d done much stupider things to their cars, which I think was supposed to offer me a nugget of comfort.