Oh what a lovely day, or at least it was...

[JLR2]

Lovely weather, not raining...yet, I've a full fridge and freezer the 5lb ham I roasted yesterday is awaiting slicing on my Berkel, and best part of half a pot of coffee sitting on my wee hotplate, what could spoil such a lovely day?

Maybe both coil springs of my car just snapping and that is just what has happened. I made to go down to my local Co-op and heard a loud bang as I sat in the car. Hearing this bang I jumped, as you might expect, out and took a walk around the car and seeing nothing I carried on with the Co-op trip. On the way back, as I made a left turn up a wee hill another bang filled the air. Having parked the car and taken another look I saw both sides of the rear suspension had gone. I'm now waiting a call from my local garage who will come through and collect the car to carry out the repairs needed.

I'm quite lucky in that I'm relaxed about the garage involved as it is owned by a near neighbour and he does the car's MOT's. The last MOT for my 08 plate car was passed without any issues as was the previous one so I'm sure he will not be looking to make any extra monies out of my situation. The other thing that sees me that bit more relaxed than I would normally be when something like this happens is I'm sure I've enough cash to hand to cover any costs involved in the repairs.

Oh well time for another coffee :-)

[Sunshine]

You sound pretty chilled despite the 'scare' of your car breaking. I am glad you have a garage to go to that you trust, we do to for my Berlingo, neverthe less I have breakdown cover too - not that I have been going anywhere most of the year.

Coffee sound good  >thumbsup<

[Monic1511]

Hi
Im glad you are so chilled about the sudden bangs on the car,  I suppose there is nothing you can do about it so why stress,  I hope you are well in lockdown - I am working from home and its ok but you miss the office banter.

[JLR2]

Thanks, when I experienced the first bang I thought it must have been something I have stored in the back of the car moving, amongst other things I have my wheelchair there, so after my quick examination I thought little more about it. It was only on the second bang when actually driving that I felt drat! there has to be something wrong and so it turned out.

My being chilled though I think is down to my having the cash on hand as it were to cover any reasonable costs for the repairs. Had this access to cash not been available it'd be a long time before I could make use of the car again. You may be wondering where I've managed to find this cash I'm talking about, well between the effects of the lockdown seeing me no longer wandering down to the pub for the domino match me and my mates were regularly having before lockdown and the little spending I tend to do I've a fair bit put aside for things like home/car insurance and for the half expected emergencies that can happen to any of us. I'd still rather it hadn't happened though.

The lockdown isn't really making that much of a difference to me as beyond shopping and those trips to the pub, on a Sunday, my daily habits aren't much changed. Now and then I might have a chat on the phone with my sisters down in Glasgow but usually I just sit watching the news on the telly, that or old movies on DVD or talking pictures. When the UK telly is boring I switch over to the German TV channels I get through my German satellite connection. If all that fails I tend to find things about the house to change, things like moving a wall mounted light in my kitchen today, it was under a cupboard and I thought it'd be better over the worktop where I do things like boning the hams I get or simply preparing breakfast.

How others manage to cope especially those folk stuck in tenements or multi-story blocks of flats without access to a garden is hard to imagine, I probably would be cracking up were it me in that situation. 

[JLR2]

A wee update, I have the car back. It was returned earlier today and I had a bit of a shock/surprise, the lad who had just parked the car told me that, "they had found the broken coil spring", well yes I did expect they'd find that, but I didn't expect what he said next, "the other coil spring was missing".  I had absolutely no idea there was any spring missing and I certainly never heard any loud or odd noises whilst I have been driving the car. I said to the guy that I hoped the missing coil spring hadn't caused another driver any sort of accident but he explained it would probably have rolled into the side of the road, I hope so.

One thought crossed my mind as I was typing there and that was my wondering if it were possible for someone to remove a car's suspension spring whilst it was sitting on a driveway or maybe sitting in the street? This I mention because what appeared from my sitting room window like little spots of oil under the back of the car just under the rear right hand side, where the tyre met the ground, turned out on closer inspection to be pieces of metal which I guess came from the missing suspension spring. Surely this wouldn't be possible, like who would look to steal a car spring?

I did feel a little wary later when I drove down to my chemist to collect my repeat prescription and I'll be taking a lot more care in future when driving over the local speed bumps, then again I've never hammered over these things in the past.

Time for me to get settled down for a bit of comedy, Question Time's about to start >lol<   

[Sunny Clouds]

I sort of expect to be surprised by what people will steal, then find I'm not.  A thief doesn't necessarily steal what would make sense.

Anyway, I'm glad this whole saga has been affordable, albeit a hassle.

[JLR2]

Hi Sunny, I've not had the bill yet hopefully it will not be too high. I expect things like the transporter picking up the car will be part of the bill.

I was just listening to Rocco Forte on QT a moment ago as they were discussing social distancing and what he was saying had me thinking of Jaws, the movie. I could hear the Mayor of Amityville arguing about the loss of trade and encouraging folk to go back into the water. Forte is only concerned to make money even if it costs lives through a second wave of the virus. Sadly he is not alone there are many big businesses keen to see customers once again coming through their doors and I have no doubt these businesses will be nowhere near a TV studio or reporter's microphone if that 2nd wave materialises.

[Sunny Clouds]

Sorry to be slow to respond, JLR.  Mentally, I'm all over the place at the moment, positive then doom-and-gloom. 

I sometimes miss having a car, then I think of running costs, remind myself I live in an urban area with good buses and tell myself I'm better off without.  But it's an individual thing and if you've got a car, my experience is it can be a combination of anxious and frustrating to have problems, so congratulations on not freaking out over it.

[JLR2]

Sunny, don't be worrying yourself about when you make a posting >hugs<  Sometimes I can be away from the web for a while as I come up with another great idea which ends up maybe not quite as great an idea as I thought and involving more and more repairing to this, that and just about everything else that was part of my original idea >doh<  >biggrin<

Having the car back given where I live is useful but when I go over to Berlin I rarely find myself in my friend's car as those shops that we visit are not a long walk from where she lives and the public transport system is, in my opinion, great. The last time my friend used her car was having it go for its MOT, since then it has sat parked in the large, secure residents car park. Least it's there if she needs it.

Over the last few days I've once again been in home rearrange mode. A while back I changed the sound system in my living room as my Denon M10 system was getting a bit awkward, not reading cd's and the like. Anyways, the result was that I had moved the Denon into the bedroom and because my dvd/video recorder had developed problems I bought another through eBay and it turned out because it was virtually the same, a Toshiba but only the dvd recorder model, the remote control works for both which is handy because the remote for the dvd recorder packed in and they cost a fortune to buy even on eBay. As the dvd/video recorder could still receive TV channels I moved it to the kitchen and connected it up with the wee telly/video combination I had there but then I had, yes, another idea >biggrin<

I had the idea to move the TV and dvd/video units to the bedroom and placing it where the music system was sitting on top of a set of drawers. Having managed to find a way to get into the Denon cd unit and clean the laser's lens using cotton buds, and very little fluid from my Zippo's lighter fluid, I now have it working in the living room again as a completely separate sound system to the one connected to the TV. It feels somewhat odd listening to the old Denon again as when it started to go wrong I replaced much of it with separates, a Denon tuner/amplifier and the amplifier takes connections for my Philips cd recorder, TEC turntable and the dvd recorder. Having completed these rearrangements I turned to the kitchen.

In the kitchen, having moved the TV/dvd/video recorder to the bedroom, I started to rearrange where I had the Berkel slicer sitting. I had sited it just under the window so I could have plenty of daylight when using it but with having moved a strip light I put under a wall cupboard onto the wall above a floor standing cupboard I decided to move the slicer there, this also suits me because above it there is the blue light electric fly/insect killer hanging. The area under the window where the slicer had been is far better for food preparation. I have my Handee cheese cutter and large shrink wrap dispenser around me along with the Bonzer can  opener for those 6lb tins of corned beef. I've managed to organise where the microwave unit sits but really why I hold onto it I don't know, it is a good unit but I must have used it from new maybe 5/6 times.

There are something's, furniture wise that tend to stay pretty much where they are for years Sunny, but maybe it's just me and some sort of need compunction I have to find something to do that sees me rearranging the house as I do. Mind you I'm real happy that the old Denon's working where it is sitting. You see the cd recorder that's part of the other system I have set up only plays one cd at a time the Denon unit has a 3 disc system and it's sitting on top of the Yamaha subwoofer I bought for it in Inverness years back, it cost a wee fortune and can't connect to my other Denon amp as that one doesn't have a connection point for such units. It's one of those things, I hadn't noticed when I bought the Denon 520AE that it was their next model up that did have the connection I needed, at least I have the unit I do have and it's working away as I'm typing this posting.

I hope I've not bee boring the daylights out of you Sunny, I'll away the now and start putting a pot of coffee together  :-)

[Monic1511]

I hope putting the coffee together is a lot less work  >biggrin<  >hugs<

[lankou]

Coil suspension springs can break through old age/fatigue and fall off without the driver noticing other than the handling will be somewhat strange.

[JLR2]

Hello Lankou, one of my car's coil springs had been replaced a few years back, funnily enough when I heard the second bang from spring going it was on the same short sharp uphill bend where the earlier replaced spring had broken. A the time I thought there must be some pot hole there and after that tended to take my time when making that turn.

The corner junction I've been referring to is really awkward particularly if you are not from the area. As a driver approaches the bend on the A9 heading north s/he will not be aware of it as the wall of the Church forms part of the bend and is quite a tall wall this and the fact that the uphill single vehicle road is on the apex of the bend means there really is no indication of there being a junction there at all. As it is a one-way entry there is no danger of anyone coming out into traffic.

Another problem with the junction is caused for pedestrians looking to cross the main road (A9) as for anyone to see if both direction each side of the road are clear to cross is simply not possible. Folk have to make their way north of the junction or south to where they can have sight of approaching traffic and even then, because of the speed of some drivers on the A9, have to be fair sharpish in  crossing the road.