A Rude Awakening

The smoke alarm decided it was time to announce its battery was dieing this morning - at 5:30. Growl. It was a rather hot sticky night as we're heading into a heat wave by all accounts. The alarm going off was rather bizarre since it coincided with the alarm clock having a moment and switching itself on while resetting the time. It rather made us wonder if there wasn't a lightning strike in the vicinity.

We've been requesting copies of the kids school records. Two schools have said no problem, and intend to give us big brown envelopes on the last day of term, or thereabouts. One school however is insisting that we will have to get the NZ school to contact them and they will then send them on. This seems rather bizarre, to say the least. As the head of year isn't playing ball, we've written to the head teacher who hopefully will be able to sort it out. He has already told us that we can "have sight of" the records at any time we like. We'll have to see what happens I suppose.

On the car front, we have agreed to sell the bus to Imogen's piano teacher. The best bit is that they don't want it until mid August which means that we get to use it until then, which means that we can continue to use it until then. We've let them have it at a reasonable price since they're being as flexible as possible, and it means we'll be without the car for only three weeks before we fly off.

Our internal lighting issues have been resolved - by me. The landlord told me that If I could fix it, then to go ahead so I replaced the dead spotlight and its associated transformer with a standard pendant thing which means that we can use a low energy bulb - an added bonus as this light stays on all night to stop the kids freaking out in the dark.

Bikeless!

I parted with the FZ this morning. I am now officially bikeless for the first time since my late teens. OK, so I haven't had my leg over in 11 years (the FZ's last MOT was in 1998) but that's not the point - I now no longer own any powered two wheel transportation.

We had some good times on the FZ. One particularly fine time was when we rode back from Cornwall to Hull - the trouble with "sporting" motorcycles is that it can feel like you sitting on a razor blade and after about 300 miles, it's a bind. We'd stopped at Woodall services to fill up before the final blast down the M18M62 and to try to recover from an increasingly numb derriere. If you know the M18, you'll know it's a boring 2 (as opposed to the usual 3) lane motorway and there's not much traffic and no plod/speed camera- or there wasn't 15 years ago, and it's around 26 miles long. What with a sore butt and all, it seemed wise to crank it up a little, so I did. It took us (two up) 11 minutes. :-)

The rented house continues to unimpress. The landing lights have gone out. They're poxy little 12 Volt spotlights, and they've done the usual thing of overheating and oxidised the wiring where it joins the ceramic fitting where the bulb plugs in. Of course we're not supposed to fix things like this as it's the landlord's responsibility. So far, no response to an email send two days ago. Grrr.

Retro Computing

Would you Adam and Eve it? I flogged the ZX81 for a whacking £29.50 on fleabay. At one point I had, like, nearly 20 watchers. Who are these people? Have you not heard that things have moved on - you've got more CPU power in your phone - more than put a man on the moon. I don't honestly think I paid quite that much for it back in 1982 or when ever I bought it. It does still work. Work is a relative term for one of these things. Tuning it into a modern telly is a job and a half since the autotuning function that we've all grown to know and, er..., know doesn't seem to notice the little inverse video K symbol lurking in the bottom of the screen. I'm hoping that the chap who bought it will be suitably televisually equipped and not fling it back at me if it won't do colour. Should of bought a Spectrum, mate. I expect he's just going to nail it to the wall, above a sign that says "Emergency Use Only" or something equally glib.

I've also managed to flog the FZ750, my last remaining motorcycle, to a chap from Bristol (ooh, arr). He's not seen it yet, but as he's posted me a cheque which turned up yesterday, it's his for the taking. He did haggle rather a lot and I can't help thinking he's got rather a steal, but then even in tip top condition, they only go for about a grand, so a tatty heap that's been decked both sides and only runs on two probably is only worth £140 quid.