Now there's a sight.

Today will mostly be spent watching the Monaco Grand Prix, after having taken an old mattress to the dump.

We have no van, and the only trailer has a boat on it. Ingenuity will see a mattress in the Bolton area strapped to the top of a boat on a trailer.

Post Stockport signing and Knutsford signing this coming Sunday.

It's been such a busy week between packing the house up and work that I haven't blogged everything that I probably should. It was the Stockport signing today, and in my haste I completely forgot to announce it! Silly me. I did still get a lot of people come though (some of you must be checking the website, which is good). However the Waterstone's in Stockport asked me to sign up a load of copies at the end, so these are available on a first come first served basis from the shop.

In case events overtake me and I forget to blog about it (the house move is on Tuesday) the next book signing event where you can come and meet me and get a personalised signed copy of 'Bringing home the stars' is at the Knutsford branch of Waterstone's in a break from the usual formula, I will be there on the coming Sunday which is the 5th of June. I believe that I am scheduled to do 11:00am to 3:00pm. I don't often do signings on a Sunday, though I did do one at the Metrocentre and at Darlington which were successful. I look forward to seeing people there!

Signing in Hanley today

I shall be mostly signing copies of my book, "Bringing home the stars", in Waterstone's in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent today.

The Gay Dolphin adventure.

Now I have your attention...

I've just been packing up stuff for an impending house move in a week and a half's time. Amongst my many, many books I rediscovered a first edition copy of a book called "The Gay dolphin adventure" by Malcolm Saville. I have first editions of all of the first three 'Lone Pine' adventures. Interestingly they are amongst the ones in the set that seem to be out of print.

I doubt we'll be seeing the days of children's books with 'gay' in the title for a while. Of course, back then it was a common word for 'happy'. Just quite how happy the dolphin was I really don't know*.

*Yes, I am aware that the book is named after the inn in the story.

Hanley Waterstone's book signing.

Just to let you all know that I will be at the Waterston's in Hanley (part of Stoke-on-Trent) on this Saturday (21st of May). I look forward to seeing people there!

Rain stops play.

It's been a stressful week, and it continues to be so which explains the huge drop off in blogging posts. Suffice to say that we are in the last week of an odyssey into fail that has been the process of buying our first house. It sin't our epic fail, but a catalogue of delays and problems not of our making. This in turn has made it a very stressful experience, and both of us have suffered.

Before we embarked on this I was told that buying a house is the most stressful thing that the average person will ever do in their lives. They weren't kidding. Actually, they forget to emphasise the stress part.

So blog posts may be thin on the ground until we move at the end of this moth and get ourselves sorted. Normal service should hopefully then resume.

Break in; break out.

In a break from normality the car passed its MOT first time without even acquiring any advisory notices. I also had a very interesting philosophical discussion about politics with a gentleman whilst waiting for it to be done, so win-win there.

Last night I had an interesting experience in getting locked out of the vehicle I was driving after having pulled in to check something. I shut the door, and the central locking decided that this was of course a brilliant time to lock the vehicle... with the keys in the ignition and the engine running. It is a known fault with Scania R420 lorries, but that was no consolation as I ended up using a passing Policeman's tyre iron to smash out a side window. There's something quite ironic about breaking into a vehicle whilst a Policeman stands chuckling. It is intersting to note that automotive safety glass breaks with alarming ease. However, I ended up back on the road after only an hour's delay.

This morning I've dropped off requested paperwork with the solicitor. Hopefully by the end of next week we'll get a better idea of how long this whole process will take; I'm looking forward to being in the new house! (As I think anyone else would be in the same situation).

Blood, sweat and oil.

Car cleaned and pre-MOT serviced. Basically, that means I've dipped the oil, topped it up as well as topping up the coolant and screen wash. I've also given the thing its yearly wash, because I suspect that if the car looks well cared for, they are less likely to look quite as hard at things.

The other big job I've done is rotate the tyres. "But the rotate every time you move it!" I hear you cry. Actually, rotating the tyres is something else. Essentially I moved the front wheels to the backs and vice versa. It's a tiring job to change four wheels on a car! Especially when the mechanic who refitted both rear wheels a couple of weeks ago went a bit gung-ho with his Wayne's-World air gun. Hopefully this will even out tyre wear, as the Volvo 850 is very kind to its rear tyres, but not quite so kind to the fronts. I had Pirelli branded tyres on the backs, but budget ones on the front. The problem I have found with budget tyres is that they wear out far too quickly - the rubber is nowhere near as durable as the big-name tyre company tyres. So rather than let the budget tyres run out in the next year, I've moved them to the back and let the quality rubber hit the road at the front. That should stave off the MOT advisory note I got every year about the previous tyres (Michelins) which actually managed a startling 50,000+ miles over seven years and were 'almost worn out' for the last three years because I do such a low mileage and they were on the back.

Exhaust and front wishbone related bills are still firm favourites for MOT fails. I'm wondering if I get considered a cash cow at times by garages? Still, I've looked quite closely behind the wheels this year so I know exactly what is there and what condition it looks in - it's nice to be prepared.

A little automotive housekeeping.

I must remember to get the car MOTed this week. I wonder what novel-yet-expensive fault will develop on the way to the test centre this year? I've pre-empted the usual alleged abrasiveness of the road between here and the test centre by replacing my tyres a few weeks ago. I thing either exhaust or front wishbones are the favourite as the garage hasn't tried stinging me for them for a while.

I drive an old car, for reasons that centre around not buying into the environmental BS surrounding "replacing an older car with a newer fuel efficient car helps the environment". No it doesn't. Why? Because the pollution and carbon footprint of making a car would require that car to be run on average yearly mileage for around five decades in order for exhaust emissions to equal manufacturing pollution. It would take me a century to recoup the cost of buying a new car from fuel savings too.

At 185,000 miles on the clock there's still life left in the old girl. It actually passes the emissions test by a very clear margin each year and is well within the limits they allow for it. Driven for economy, a very healthy 41mpg can be achieved, which is still comparable for a new car of its size and comfort. As long as work required at the MOT doesn't radically exceed its nominal value, I would still rather get it repaired than scrap it and enter into an epic odyssey into the unknown of buying a newer vehicle. I know the history of my 1996 vintage Volvo brick, and know that she hasn't been raced, rallied or thrashed into the ground by any of the three previous owners. She also has the advantage that she possesses on board not too much electronic gizmos, so there is much less to go wrong than on a new vehicle.

I notice out on the roads I am not alone sharing these feelings about old cars. I still see a reasonable proportion of vehicles out there that are a similar age or older. Today I witnessed an E-reg Volvo 740 (1987-8) which took me back as my first car was an F-reg Volvo 740. That little hawk was a few thousand miles shy of quarter of a million when I sold it on, and the engine was still as good as the day it left the factory somewhere in Belgium.

I do still hanker for the occasional years where nothing needs doing at an MOT. Given that over the last year I have replaced the radiator, front brake hoses, left side front calliper and two rear tyres, I may just be in with a shout this year. Then again, the cynic in me knows the little Swedish beast will find something to fail on; it's at that kind of age and mileage.

Fire, fun and frolics!

Good news yesterday in that the mortgage saga that has been dragging on for months finally came to completion. We now have a mortgage approved officially, and we can move onto the next step of buying a house which is the solicitor stage. I've impressed upon them the need for speed, as we need to be away from this house by the end of the month as that's when the lease runs out. We actually walked into Bolton to the solicitors to show our documents and to pay to speed up the process as much as we could. Fingers crossed that we'll be in the new house by the end of the month!

Yesterday Zoe and I witnessed a massive fire in Bolton. By all accounts an MOT garage and attached office block caught fire. I doubt there is much left now as I've never seen a building fire so intense. I feel really sorry for the people who, according to Google street view, had houses adjoining the site. Strangely there is very little about the fire online, despite the fact that some thirty firefighters and many engines were in attendance. They even had to lay a hose all the way to a nearby river because of a lack of water. Zoe got some videos for posterity, and these are on her Youtube page.

Given the amount of rain that has arrived here in Bolton, I think we managed to get the trip away to Windermere judged just right. It's just a shame that we couldn't have had the Easter weekend too because of the gas issue (or more accurately - the hole that wasn't filled in by them in time). Still, we got there in the end.

Sailing at Windermere.

I have just returned from a three day sailing trip to Lake Windermere. We are nicely sunburnt and there were no problems with the boat; it performed faultlessly. Though a fault was discovered with the organic components holding the ropes and tiller that can be explained by lack of sailing knowledge ;)