skyring

I mentioned a malfunctioning powerboard a couple of weeks back. The replacement has likewise given up working, even though when I plug a light into the same power socket it works fine. Odd and inconvenient.

Kerri went to another meeting in Sydney yesterday. We loaded up her Libretto beforehand with the agenda papers from a CD and made sure it was fully charged. She loves it, did I mention that?

Got in the car about a quarter past eight to take her to the airport, turned the key and it just made a few odd noises. It's been having trouble starting over the past week, as winter begins to bite, but this sounded pretty definite. And possibly expensive.

Dived into the other car and promised DD I'd be back ASAP so she could drive to her uni exam beginning at nine. Drive drive drive to airport and drive drive drive back. Lucky it's only five minutes away. Make it in half the time if it wasn't for six roundabouts on the way. And a set of traffic lights. The guy in front was lolygagging along. I could see the lights were going to change and I wanted to be there, but couldn't drive through the bastard. Green light turns to amber and the GIF suddenly stands on the loud pedal and accelerates through, leaving me fuming behind. Bastard. If he'd staid on the speed limit all along we would have both got through on the green.

DD wanted me to drive her to her exam as she didn't think she'd have time to drop off DS on the way, and she thought I could drive her to uni and drop off DS on my way back home. Didn't have time to argue, so I done it. As it happened we got a red light just in front of DS's school, so he hopped out and strolled across the road. So that was an hour out of my life. quarter of an hour there, quarter back, then another half hour of driving to pick her up again after.

Still, she nailed the exam, and that's all that really matters.

Mid afternoon I decided I'd best do something about Kerri's car. Still making expensive sounds when I turned the key, nothing looked wrong under the hood (though it's hard to tell with today's cars). Called the NRMA, they got someone out and guess what?

Yeah. He turned the key and the car fired up first cough. Arrrrrgh!

He did a bit of testing and reckoned that the car's original battery had done its dash. That's 160 000 km, and seven years, so fair enough. If it's gunna die, it's gunna die in winter.

So we got a replacement battery fitted free of charge at a rate about two and a half times the cost of a new battery from the garage.

"It's a special Falcon battery!"

Yeah, right.

Not to worry. the car works and is reliable again.

<ust go and get some trakkie-daks. I'm still wearing shorts to bed and it's getting a bit too cold for that.