Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2018 15:33:28 GMT -5
Like the heading says, a big HI! to everyone. I've not been by this way for quite a while mainly because the fates seem to be amusing themselves by slinging more and more cr@p in my direction, if you excuse the expression.
On New Year's day I was greeted by a leak in my kitchen behind the first, and therefore 'key' cabinet that I installed. I lived with it until things became too bad to ignore up until a few weeks ago because I thought that I'd have to rip all of my kitchen cabinets out again to get at it and I didn't want to do that until I've got the planning go-ahead to start my major house renovation work. But eventually I had to just cut the back out of said cabinet to investigate the problem and it turned out that the repair wasn't half as difficult as I thought. I still had to do it of course, which I did, plus making good the damage I'd done getting at it.
On the planning front, my planned project came to a halt when I became ill and having lost the whole of last year through my illness, I enquired at the planning office about resurrecting the plans that I'd submitted back in 2016. I was advised (quite correctly) that as so much time had been lost, I'd do better to resubmit them with the additions and changes that were requested right back in December of that year. The trouble with that was that since then I've removed some trees and made major changes in my garden in preparation for my planned extension, which was not a problem, except that it meant redoing the whole dossier with up-to-date pictures, a long job. But do it I had to, and today I was rewarded with receiving a letter containing my consent to go ahead. BTW I did all the planning work myself despite having no architectural training but it's amazing what you can do if you're determined with free software downloaded from the internet.
OK, what next? Ah, having concluded my course of chemo in January of this year I foolishly thought that I'd be well enough in May to fly back to the UK in my Savannah. Bad mistake. Everyone else but me knew that I was nowhere near well enough and to cut a long story short, as a result of poor judgement preparing to take off, while turning I smacked my wingtip against the engine of a friend's aircraft. Luckily no damage to his aircraft but damage to my aircraft's slat and wingtip.
Luckily I found a way of acquiring a replacement slat at very low cost but on the way north in June to collect it, my car engine expired 6 hours away from home south west of Paris. Luckily I have roadside assistance and they loaded my car onto the back of a truck to take it to a garage in the area who could diagnose and/or repair it. No garage was interested as they were all bombed out with 'routine' work. The assistance company put me up in a hotel and got a hire car for me the next day to get me home, but my car was left in Paris. It was then taken to a garage run by crooks who, after 3 weeks, gave me an outrageous repair estimate, which I naturally rejected and ended up having to arrange to have my car shipped back to my home on a transporter at a cost of 500€. I'm still chasing a partial refund of 180€ which the Assistance are supposed to pay up to for towing. My friendly local mechanic said that they had not even touched the engine in Paris and therefore had no idea what the problem was and their idea was just to take it to bits and then keep sending me new bills which they hoped I would keep paying in the hope of eventually getting a repaired car back.
To date I still don't have a car but having already replaced the fuel injector pump, we think new injectors will do it and I'm now awaiting delivery of them this week. In the meantime I've been relying on the generosity of a very good friend and running around in his totally restored Citroen 2CV as you can't live without a car down here. And in the meantime doing the repairs to my Savannah, which I completed just yesterday. I'd hoped to reschedule my UK flight for this month but unfortunately with all the other stuff that's hit me, time has beaten me
So a weird, hectic summer full of non-stop drama but I won't bore you with the other trivial stuff that has also been thrown up over the period. And know what, as a result after missing out on flying for the whole of last summer, even though I'm now fit enough, I've only managed a meagre few hours this summer too.
Like I say, in the meantime I've been running around in my friend's 2CV. I've combined it with a little bit of experimenting with multi-camera videos and if you're still interested after ploughing through all the dross above, here's one of two videos that I shot while driving it that I uploaded yesterday to Youtube.
From now on, especially if the new injectors when they arrive sort out my car problem, I hope that things can only get better. At least, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I just hope I don't have another summer like the last two
On New Year's day I was greeted by a leak in my kitchen behind the first, and therefore 'key' cabinet that I installed. I lived with it until things became too bad to ignore up until a few weeks ago because I thought that I'd have to rip all of my kitchen cabinets out again to get at it and I didn't want to do that until I've got the planning go-ahead to start my major house renovation work. But eventually I had to just cut the back out of said cabinet to investigate the problem and it turned out that the repair wasn't half as difficult as I thought. I still had to do it of course, which I did, plus making good the damage I'd done getting at it.
On the planning front, my planned project came to a halt when I became ill and having lost the whole of last year through my illness, I enquired at the planning office about resurrecting the plans that I'd submitted back in 2016. I was advised (quite correctly) that as so much time had been lost, I'd do better to resubmit them with the additions and changes that were requested right back in December of that year. The trouble with that was that since then I've removed some trees and made major changes in my garden in preparation for my planned extension, which was not a problem, except that it meant redoing the whole dossier with up-to-date pictures, a long job. But do it I had to, and today I was rewarded with receiving a letter containing my consent to go ahead. BTW I did all the planning work myself despite having no architectural training but it's amazing what you can do if you're determined with free software downloaded from the internet.
OK, what next? Ah, having concluded my course of chemo in January of this year I foolishly thought that I'd be well enough in May to fly back to the UK in my Savannah. Bad mistake. Everyone else but me knew that I was nowhere near well enough and to cut a long story short, as a result of poor judgement preparing to take off, while turning I smacked my wingtip against the engine of a friend's aircraft. Luckily no damage to his aircraft but damage to my aircraft's slat and wingtip.
Luckily I found a way of acquiring a replacement slat at very low cost but on the way north in June to collect it, my car engine expired 6 hours away from home south west of Paris. Luckily I have roadside assistance and they loaded my car onto the back of a truck to take it to a garage in the area who could diagnose and/or repair it. No garage was interested as they were all bombed out with 'routine' work. The assistance company put me up in a hotel and got a hire car for me the next day to get me home, but my car was left in Paris. It was then taken to a garage run by crooks who, after 3 weeks, gave me an outrageous repair estimate, which I naturally rejected and ended up having to arrange to have my car shipped back to my home on a transporter at a cost of 500€. I'm still chasing a partial refund of 180€ which the Assistance are supposed to pay up to for towing. My friendly local mechanic said that they had not even touched the engine in Paris and therefore had no idea what the problem was and their idea was just to take it to bits and then keep sending me new bills which they hoped I would keep paying in the hope of eventually getting a repaired car back.
To date I still don't have a car but having already replaced the fuel injector pump, we think new injectors will do it and I'm now awaiting delivery of them this week. In the meantime I've been relying on the generosity of a very good friend and running around in his totally restored Citroen 2CV as you can't live without a car down here. And in the meantime doing the repairs to my Savannah, which I completed just yesterday. I'd hoped to reschedule my UK flight for this month but unfortunately with all the other stuff that's hit me, time has beaten me
So a weird, hectic summer full of non-stop drama but I won't bore you with the other trivial stuff that has also been thrown up over the period. And know what, as a result after missing out on flying for the whole of last summer, even though I'm now fit enough, I've only managed a meagre few hours this summer too.
Like I say, in the meantime I've been running around in my friend's 2CV. I've combined it with a little bit of experimenting with multi-camera videos and if you're still interested after ploughing through all the dross above, here's one of two videos that I shot while driving it that I uploaded yesterday to Youtube.
From now on, especially if the new injectors when they arrive sort out my car problem, I hope that things can only get better. At least, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I just hope I don't have another summer like the last two