The patient is with the doctor...

There’s a small electrical fault with the car. Intermittently the fan (that cools the engine) won’t switch off and runs the battery down. So I’ve taken her to a new garage. I wasn’t that impressed with the last one; Queens in Penge. For two reasons really, one was they never returned calls which infuriated me no end, the other being that there are two screws on the rocker gasket to keep the top in place, when the car was returned they hadn’t bother to replace them. Now it’s a small thing, a very small thing. But I think if they didn’t bother to do something that simple…

(When I told them about it, they lied and said, the car arrived like that. I know with 100% certainty that it arrived with the two screws intact.)

Anyway, the customer is always right apparently and so I’ve taken my business elsewhere. I’m always so anxious when the car goes in so I shall spend the day on or certainly near my tenterhooks, whatever the hell tenterhooks might be.

I never really followed up on our chimney sweep visit. As I think I mentioned before, I love real fires and am just generally not that keen on central heating – it dries everything out. We have a fireplace in the front room, our room and the spare room and took the decision to have the first two swept and tested to see if we could use them. We knew that if we couldn’t use them it would be £120 effectively up in smoke – if you pardon the pun – but I wanted to check anyway. And unfortunately it turned out that we can’t use either. Basically, the flue in the front room is smashed at some point so smoke leaks, and both chimney pots have been replaced by ‘vented cowls’. Although the bedroom fireplace is in perfect working order, without a proper pot, it’s too dangerous to use. Basically the cowls prevent a proper draw which means smoke can back up which is dangerous. At least we know now I suppose, but I do wish there had been a cheaper way to find out! We called out Mike Doyle a member of the Master Guild of Chimney sweeps – they cover all of London and we found him and his dad friendly and efficient and they kept everything really clean. They laid sheets everywhere and we didn’t find any soot or dirt as a result of their visit. (They were also very good about Pluto wanting to help them!)

Tomorrow is an exciting day for me. There is a place called Foal Farm in Kent; an animal sanctuary and they had a small piece in the local paper – I can’t even remember what about now. Anyway in my quest to (a) volunteer again (b) get animal – specifically large animal – experience, I dropped them an email to see if they wanted trustees or volunteers. A couple of weeks later I got a phone call and an email saying sorry for the delay, but they were very interested in my interesting skills! Tomorrow I’m going along to have a chat with the chairperson and general manager. I’m really looking forward to it. I shall let you know what happens!