Xac's adventures with Cassy (and friends + wife)

jgra1 · Post by **jgra1** » 17 May 2010, 21:28

jabs, where you off to Xac?

Romantic, mine had to suffer me buying wood yesterday.. about 6 hours in total

Xaccers · Post by **Xaccers** » 17 May 2010, 22:14

You old smoothie John, I think I'll save that one for our aniversary

We're off to Sharm El Sheikh, taking my parents with us too this time, and it's Danielle's first time so we're all excited.
Also gives me the chance to stand on the shore of Sinai and wave at "home" across the gulf of Aqaba.

jgra1 · Post by **jgra1** » 17 May 2010, 22:33

good stuff

Always fancied Egypt.. are you going to dive

Xaccers · Post by **Xaccers** » 17 May 2010, 22:43

jgra1 wrote: good stuff

Always fancied Egypt.. are you going to dive

Oh yes, hoping to get Danielle to have a go too.
Thankfully dad has decided he's too old and unfit to do it. When I took him some years ago, despite having 6 years BSAC experience from Saudi in the 80s, he did nearly drown me twice...
Although we did manage to video a manta ray

Xaccers · Post by **Xaccers** » 27 May 2010, 14:36

Got a suprise email today from the letting agency.
Landlord is selling up, probably to avoid the capital gains tax increase which is on its way.
So Danielle and I have until the 27th July to find somewhere new to live

Post by **myglaren** » 27 May 2010, 18:27

That's crap Xac - surely you have a contract that gives you more time than that in which to move?

Xaccers · Post by **Xaccers** » 27 May 2010, 19:40

lease naturally expires then so they're just not renewing.
real pita as we were hoping to spend a few more years there before looking to buy.
when i get home tonight we'll be searching the web, looking for something citroen and family friendly (future planning)

Post by **CitroJim** » 27 May 2010, 20:12

Xac wrote: So Danielle and I have until the 27th July to find somewhere new to live

Bloody hell Xac, That's seriously short notice

We'll need to have a natter about the forum hosting in the not too distant...

red_dwarfers · Post by **red_dwarfers** » 27 May 2010, 20:26

That is shocking Xac

Do they not give any help in relocation?

Xaccers · Post by **Xaccers** » 27 May 2010, 21:09

I'm pretty sure the contract states 1 month notice.
Danielle's seen a few nice places online while doing a quick search, so hopefully we'll find somewhere.
We'll need at least 2 weekends to clear this place and move out and get it spotless, so that annoyingly will mean paying rent on two places, plus paying a new deposit while waiting for the old one to be returned (sans anything they can find to reduce it I'd imagine).
Thankfully most of Danielle's stuff is still in boxes (who said procrastination was a bad thing?).

Jim, you never know, I may end up moving somewhere with a better connection!
I'll be sticking with O2 though as their service is, well frankly excellent, so the upstream will remain at 1Mbps

With the overlap between moving in to somewhere new and out of here, there shouldn't be much of an outage, I'll contact O2 on Tuesday and see what they say.
If there is going to be some time before the new place is connected, I could always do a backup of the database and bring it over on USB (much faster than broadband!).
Also need to see you before we go on hols to go over things incase there's any problems while we're away.

Xaccers · Post by **Xaccers** » 06 Jun 2010, 07:59

It's already over 30C here in Sharm, danielle and I have just had breakfast.
The EasyJet flight out was actually quite impressive, although getting a Boots meal deal was worth it as the prices on the plane are extautionate!
No inflight entertainment or reclining seat backs, but plenty of leg room, even for dad who's 6'3" and shares Jabba's tailor.
There's not a cloud in the sky

Our room is actually a suite and its awesome!

Cassy showed she was going to miss me by nearly dropping her engine out!
The stud closest to the fuel pump has sheared which will be fun to extract, one of the other studs was missing a nut so used the one from the broken stud and the last nut was nearly all the way off!

Xaccers · Post by **Xaccers** » 23 Jun 2010, 22:22

Yesterday I swung by Northampton's GSF to treat Cassy to a new set of handbrake candles, rear spheres, and a starter motor, with a view to install them this weekend.
She's a clever old thing, sensing it in her boot, and playing up a good'un at awkward moments making me bash the motor to get her started.

This evening, after a long day in a blistering hot office in Leatherhead, I stopped off at the train station to get my tain ticket for London tomorrow.
Hot, tired and fed up, I could not get Cassy to start in the car park.
I resigned myself to swapping the starter motor there and then

Out with the tools, I proceeded to undo the main terminal nut and *CRACK* the terminal snapped off!

With a lot of sweat, blood and bruised knuckles, I managed to swap motors.
Keeping my fingers crossed, I turned the key and she sprang into life a heck of a lot quieter and smoother than before!
So job done.

Xaccers · Post by **Xaccers** » 09 Jul 2010, 22:57

This afternoon was spent being thrown around on top of a lake in Northampton.
I'm totally knackered!

One of the blokes at work has a speedboat, a wake board, three infatable rings to be towed behind the boat, and a banana boat (well it's little brother, the hot dog).
To give everyone a break and a bit of fun to say thanks for our hard work, the company has agreed that everyone will get a Friday afternoon off for some water and inflatable fun.
Today was my turn.
The inflatable rings have to be my favourite, and we all did a good job of hanging on most of the time

The wake board didn't go too well, party due to me not fitting life vests (I have a big chest so need XXL, but being that big they have massive arm holes so rise up and are basically a PITA and I only wear because if I didn't I'd probably knock myself out and drown), but mostly due to my foot slipping out and the board twisting my other foot.
Anyway, despite this, we all had a great time and the weather was beautiful.

I've left Cassy at work locked away and brought the most beat up manky looking Sprinter vans I've ever seen (it makes Rattiva look pristine Jim!)
Danielle and I (should) pick up the keys to our new place tomorrow so we're moving as much as we can, as we have to be out by the 27th July.
So exhausted, Danielle and I decided we'd order from pizza hut as she normally has 50% off vouchers.
Unfortunately the only voucher she had was to pick up not delivery, so rather than take the van, I went to open Juliet, but her battery is now flat.
I've got jump leads around somewhere (unless i've left them in Cassy), but it made me wonder, on MK2's, how exactly do you open the boot if the battery is flat?

Sl4yer · Post by **Sl4yer** » 09 Jul 2010, 23:30

Xac wrote: I've got jump leads around somewhere (unless i've left them in Cassy), but it made me wonder, on MK2's, how exactly do you open the boot if the battery is flat?

Thanks for that Xac. It hadn't even occured to me that the Activa has no keyhole for the boot!

James

Xaccers · Post by **Xaccers** » 18 Jul 2010, 11:26

Spending another weekend driving the Merc moving between houses.
Cassy needs new front tyres, her arrowspeeds are down to the markers, so that's taken just over 4 months.
Looks like I'm going to be driving Juliet next week

The estimated broadband speeds at the new house are around 2.5Mbps

It should still give 1Mbps upstream so server response won't take a hit.