Finding the chase and cutting to it

On our recent ski trip we discovered we’d lost the driver’s side dipped beam lamp.   Which is not exactly a legal position to be in but we were heading home and didn’t have a spare bulb – plus, I think I saw it go when we checked the orientation of the bulbs on our return from main land Europe.

Thankfully, we don’t need to use the car very much so my husband had a good look and declared the bulb was fine!

I love the fact I studied diagnostics as part of my HNC back in the early 90’s (1990s not any earlier than that ;)) and having researched what replacing the wiring or headlight unit ($435.44 plus VAT), I thought that with a few unallocated hours on my hands, I might check we were in that position (a diagnostic by the dealership is £168).

I looked in the handbook, took my volt meter and checked the wiring.  My headlamp unit is not a sealed unit: I went for the halogen bulbs back when I bought the car.  I can also switch on the headlamps from the keyfob.  Taking my volt meter and by passing the bulb, it was obvious everything else was working, just not the bulb.

Great, take the bulb out and check it’s not the bulb holder.  Only I can’t remove the bulb.  Check the user manual again and a couple of You-Tube videos.  I am doing the right thing.  I head back to the car.

It still won’t budge.  OK, let’s leave it all alone and get a spare bulb as everything else seems to be OK.  I head to the dealer ship.

Bulb kit

I bought my car in 2010, I have the option to buy a bulb kit which is a complete set of user changeable bulbs.  Even in my ancient car, some of these are sealed units so if a bulb goes you need a complete light unit 😮  Remember the £435 +VAT quote…

Anyway, I make the request.  The lady servicing the service desk hands me off quickly – I may look a bit of a mess, I dropped the roof on the car I drove over and I’m wearing trainers and a jean jacket.  I look like I paid cash for my car in 2010, you can tell – it’s actually one of the reasons I bought the car, the salesman treated me like a lady even though I had turned up to the dealership on a hyperbike: George treated me like I was a human being interested in buying an interesting car not a girl who was looking for her husband.

Anyway, a young gentleman from parts came out and did not understand the term bulb kit.  I explained that for some countries, especially in mainland europe, it’s a legal requirement to carry a full set of spares.  If you are pulled over with a dead bulb (this happened to me once in the UK and I bought and fitted a bulb in the next service station proving why you know how to do that, althought to be fair, in the dark, I did put the single bulb in 180º the wrong way round way) it’s a good to have, helps the police understand you’re a diligent and caring driver.

Anyway, after some wrangling and explaining, we get the right part ordered, although “there’s no guarantees they will work!”.  My car is completely standard, so I’m not that worried.  The bulb kit is turning up on Saturday.

So I head over to Halfords and buy a pair of H7 55W 12V bulbs.

Back to the car.

For the life of me, I cannot pull out the old bulb – while the fuse survived (and I do have a pair of them turning up on Saturday, just in case) I am increasingly thinking the bulb has over heated and bonded to the holder, not terminally welded but definitely a small ionic bong.  A simple jolt might be enough to break the bond, so along with the socket sets for removing the headlight unit, I fetch a large flat head screwdriver.  I am going to use that to prise and wiggle the unit.

Very gently prising and wiggling, it begins to shift and when it does, I ditch the tools and yank that baby out!

Fitting is the reversal of removal, I push in the new bulb and put back the fuse and switch on the circuit in the car and press the button on the key.

Success.  Turn off the circuit and refit the unit retest and I deem that a success.

To wit, my husband said the above 😀  He could buy me a good meal and a piece of jewelery 😉  That seems to be my going rate 😀

Equipment necessary

1. 10mm socket set, preferably magnetic (for removing the bolts holding the headlamp unit in place)
2. 10mm torque set with a small head and angled for the wheel arch bolt.
3. Head touch (in case you’re doing this in the dark)
4. Optional – large flat head screwdriver
5. Gloves to keep your grease off the halogen bulb (leather or plastic preferred, washing up gloves are ideal).

Method

1. Drive the car forward with full lock on away from the side you are changing.
2. Undo the bolts, including the wheel arch one.  That will stay in place the top ones have a habit of dropping so use a magnetic socket to ensure that doesn’t happen.  You will feel daft losing one and it embedding in your tire.
3. Wiggle out the unit and undo the dipped beam back cover.
4. Twist the lamp holder out and prise out the bulb.
5. Push in the new one and rotate back the lamp holder into its home.
6. Replace the back cover and carefully refit the headlamp unit.
7. Replace and tighten the bolts.
8. Retest the lamp.
9. When working, close the bonnet.

Should take 10 minutes.

Having finally straightened out all of my finances (no real debt just gaining some wiggle room) and looking at what we’ve done round the house the past 6 years, I’ve bought some blinds to replace the venetian blinds we had everywhere.

We’re reasonably lucky: every window upstairs in identical in width and height, so the previous owners had a very coordinated look with identical blinds everywhere.

We’ve gone for something a little different.   5 of our upstairs windows are south facing which is great when it’s sunny in the winter but makes keeping the house cool in the summer a bit difficult.

We also have light pollution from the main street lights.

So a set of black out roller blinds has seen us proud.  I’ve even got one in the bathroom.

What I wasn’t expecting was how much better they are at thermal insulation.  It’s quite something to the extent I’m thinking of turning down the morning temp on the thermostats.

Are you sure that’s not just summer coming round the corner?

It’s not been warm the past week, at all.  Barely 5ºC first thing in the morning, so I don’t think so.

It’ll be interesting next winter.

Sounds like you’ve been busy…

I’ve had some unexpected time on my hands and along with the home furnishings, I’ve been doing quite a bit of spring cleaning, garden maintenance and finishing off some DIY.

I’ve been getting on with my training for the cycle ride too, up to 62 miles in one go (over 6hrs 12minutes) so building up my average.  Indeed it’s going well enough I might actually train for a longer ride so that the 100miles in August seems a little easier.

I love the start of a new financial year at work, things are quiet enough to let you plan outside of the office for what you want to be different going forward.

and the chicks for free is the line from Dire Straits.

Totally unPC these days but with Brexit and interest rates in the UK finally making a difference to our exchange rates, it makes sense to invest some free time into something productive.

Eh, what are you on about?

Many moons ago, we asked our son if he’d outgrown his Buzz Lightyear curtains and got an affirmative grunt.

A trip to John Lewis and we found some curtains he liked that were the right width for his dormer windows.  Great, only thing was the length.  Our dormers are short, 91cm wide but only 127cm tall.

It took me 5 years, but a couple of months ago, with the help of youTube, I trimed off 43cm from the top of each curtain and reattached the curtain header and low, half a days effort we all had made to measured curtains.

And a load of fabric.

You binned it right, or recycled it?

Today, I used 90 minutes of my time (don’t ask, I don’t do this very often) and finished this task.

Step 1:

Buy cushions from Hobbycraft, Ipswich – I chose a 43cm square one as that made the most of my spare fabric.

Step 2:

prep fabric – I took out the black out lining still attached to the off cuts.

Set up your iron ready to iron in the hems for the cushions.

Step 3:

measure out the fabric as specified on Home stories a to z envelope cushion cover.  43cm is 17″, so I measured out 40″ by 17″.

Cut it to length.

Step 4:

iron in the hems for the short edges.

Step 5:

sew in the hems and fit the fabric to the cushion and pin where the overlap is.

Step 6:

do the long edges as per Home stories a to z envelope cushion cover.

Step 7:

take your photo 🙂 and place in room for a very coordinated look.

A big thank you to Home stories a to z envelope cushion cover and N Kinsey. This would have taken me forever to figure out without your help!

I think I still have enough fabric to recover the lampshade…

For those in the UK and Europe

If, like me, you live in the UK or Europe, we do not measure in inches and so our cushion pads are not sold in inches.

This means Beth’s measurements are not directly transferable.

This is her method in metric:

The very sharp eyed will see that basically it’s the width of the cushion by twice the width and 15cm (width by (2width+15)).

Or you could try my cushion tool.

If you’re like us, you woke this morning to find some things had magically changed their time and some things haven’t.

It’s been a very long time since you couldn’t rely on your computer and phone to align to the change in time but if like us you have some smart/programmable systems in your home, they are for a period behind the times.

As a ritual, I do my testing meters and pump together – having one out of alignment is not at all what you want.

Then I do the kitchen clocks (cooker, microwave and wall clock).  The DAB radio sets itself but the land line phone will wait for someone to call us – I sometimes call home early to jog it to the right time.

The TV and boxes now all change automatically as do our radio clocks.  The cars and motorbikes though tend to be done in one sitting.

Fun times 🙂

I’m trying to write this while I’m still hypo becasue I’m kinda interested in what comes out.

My blood sugar measured 2.3 mmol/l on my freestyle libre about 3 minutes ago. I’ve had 2 mars bars and they are going to take a while to kick in.

My head hurts – the pain is over my left hemisphere, about the size of my palm. I’m full of mars bars and I’m having a little difficultly focusing.

I must try to edit this after wards – that would break the point.

I’m functional, I could probably say some proper sentences though they’d be a little slow. I can still think – I have some mess in my life at the moment, and that’s pretty prominent but mostly I just want to sleep. I just want to close my eyes and drift off.

I’m focusing better, water seems like a good idea. I’m up to 2.7 mmol/l on the libre so probably about 3.4mmol/l via blood – it takes a while for the sugar to seep out from the capillaries in to the fluid the sensor measures. Mars bars are a bit slow but they’ve got a serious punch.

Yes, feeling much more normal (whatever that is anyways). Night all 😉

Why do this?

Good question; because when I was very small, I could never remember hypos.  That changed a little when I got into my twenties.  Never anything useful, but some of the psychedelic nightmares did stick.

I sometimes get an enormous amount of peace when I’m hypo, but sometimes the physical short falls are terrifying.  I had one hypo in 2007 where I was completely paralysed down one side and that was awful.  Even when I came round.

Some people do a great deal to never be hypo.  Thing is, however bad it feels, this is preferable to being high.  Every time, I’ve never had a great high blood sugar, it always hurts like mad.

In May 1990, my parents bought a Stag Dinning Set: an extenable “ebony stained” table, six chairs including two carvers, finished in dusky pink velour.

Today I finished renovating the last carver in Antique Gold damak material.

Now I am heading for a relaxing soak before enjoying the fruits of my labour by having take out on the chairs.

Have a good one 🙂

Hold on a second, why do this?

Well, through the years, my family have built their own fortune, in 1990, the purchase of this dinning suite was huge for my parents.  When my husband and I moved into our first joint owned house, my parents lent this to us as a stop gap.

My son will one day have this piece of furniture and in the mean time we get to enjoy it.  Maybe one day, when my folks downsize, it will be ready for them too.

0Having started my upholstery odyssey a few weeks ago, I have reached the magic half way stage and this is what I have learnt.

1. A staple removal tool is worth its weight in gold.  I stripped four chairs in less than three hours.
2. A staple gun is not enough, you need around 4,000 odd staples for a set of six chairs as for every single staple you successfully put in there are 10 which die through not going in properly, being ejected as test subjects, jam in the machine and come out as a second or even third which cannot be tapped in so need to be ripped out.
3. You do get faster and generally better, even with the staple gun.
4. There are upholstery shops in Ipswich that will cut the foam you need to replace to size and will sell you back fabric.
5. You can get to the stage where going from the calico stage to the seat being screwed back into the chair in three hours.
6. It is well worth making a template for the backing layer. It takes 30-45 minutes to install this last step if the piece is pre-cut.
7. The tools list is as follows:
   • staple gun
   • staples – 8mm (calico and fabric) and 10mm (backing and corners)
   • metal hammer
   • pen knife (for pulling the staple gun apart when it jams)
   • long nosed pilers (generally for pulling out broken staples
   • staple remover
   • ceramic magnet (for collecting the discarded staples)

Pictures below:

In the lounge

In the hallway

The next steps are to finish the last chair, it is currently sitting looking pretty in its calico layer so needs the gold fabric cut and stapled in and the backing layer applied.  The last step is then to screw the seat into the chair.

I then need to strip the foam off the two carvers and apply the new foam, calico, damask and backing layers.  The last three steps should take half a day each.

I am not too sure how difficult it is going to be to remove the old foam.

Putting in the new depends on a smooth surface being left and then spraying in a strip of vinyl floor adhesive.  Stick that strip then work backwards to do the rest.  The glue is very fast drying so doing it in stages should allow for accuracy 🙂

Since I’ve kicked off my training plan, my blogs are very focused.

What about the rest of life?  I have two main hobbies, riding my beloved motorbike and skiing.

This is not about motorcycling (I really need to get out on the bike…)

Taking a chill pill?

You need two things to alpine ski: snow and a slope.  We travel for these.  Here are some pictures from a couple of weeks ago.

The photos show the snow in Merribel, most of the way down the French Alps.

They show the weather, the sky, the peaks and slopes, fir trees and cafes.

This is our first holiday without our son, which was a bit strange.  He’s leaving home in September and it gave him space to concentrate on his A levels and us a chance to relax with just the two of us.

We drove down France from the channel tunnel: about an 8 hour journey with breaks along route.  We relied on our aging sat nav (2012 maps!) and google maps which got us all the way from home to the hotel.

Why?

I am very nervous about hurting myself on the mountains but I love the quiet of the mountain air and, if I’m honest, skiing itself.  It’s so different to my everyday.

It’s partly why I’m keen to stay fit and healthy and why I use an electric vehicle where I can.

Here is the plan in a box, with some tracking:

The route last year may be seen here.

Last year’s route

Most of the profile (the layout of the route against sea level) is mostly easy running for the first 40 miles.  Quite East Anglican.

The second 40 miles is “rolling hills” and some “more physically demanding” sets.

The last 20 is much easier, not quite downhill all the way but not too bad.

Following James Fletcher’s advice, energy management is the key – hence my long training period.

It would be easy to say do the first 40 miles as quickly as possible as it’s mostly flat.  But we’re down to physical limitations.  My heart recovers from exercise very easy but I never get close to the 174 beats per minute I could probably do.  I generally top out at 160 bmp.

If I could do that first set at 15mph average rather than my planned 12.5mph, I could do that first 40miles in 2 hour 40minutes instead of 3 hours 12minutes.   Lets do something similar for the last 20miles, which is 1hour 20minutes.   Out of 8 hours that gives me 5 of the hard stuff.  That would allow me to drop my average to 12mph.  Uphill.

Mmm, plenty of dedicated hill training should see me through…