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What have you been doing today?

Mottie said:
Sorting through yet more boxes of historic paperwork hoarded by Mrs Motties mum. No texts, WhatsApp or FaceTime in the early eighties and international telephone calls were not easy. We found a telegram sent by Mrs Mottie-to-be on the 26th Feb 1982 that she sent to her parents when she flew out to me in South Africa. I had to take her to the main post office in Cape Town the day after she arrived. They must have charged by the word at the time. It just said: "ARRIVED SAFELY. WEATHER FINE. WITH STEVE". :LOL:
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I can just about remember the telegram boys buzzing about on their little red motorbikes.
 
I've just made use, once again today, of the little trailer I bought some months ago. I already had a tow-bar, on the car, for the caravan, so that part was 'free', in fact every car I've owned either came with a tow-bar fitted, or I quickly fitted one - because I've almost always had a caravan. I bought a trailer 30 years ago, and it sat unused for years, until I sold it - so I was in two minds whether it was even worth having one at all. I got this one used, and for the absolute bargain price of around £120. Since when it has made five trips out, to collect items for which I would have needed to hire a van, or pay 'a man with a van' to collect. It's longest trip, the 140 miles there and back to Lancashire, to collect the mobility scooter I bought.

Today, I took the trailer just a few miles, to collect a couple of garden chaise longs. Delivery would have cost £20, instead I just hooked the trailer on, and collected them myself. This time around, having a trailer available at my door, has certainly more than paid for the cost of the trailer. The only awkward part, is - I store it in the drive, behind the caravan, with no way past it. So I have to shuffle the caravan forward, bring the trailer out alongside it, then shuffle the caravan back on the mover - but we got the process down to a brisk routine. That is, unless I stored the trailer in our small front garden, but shiny though it is, it wouldn't be a pretty sight, parked there for long.
 
Final trip (for me) to the MiL's house today with Mrs Mottie. The oak furniture we had left outside yesterday and offered them for free on the local Facebook pages had been taken so that was good. If nobody takes the 3 piece suite, the council will be collecting it on Monday. £40 we paid for them to take it. It’s currently under a tarp in case of rain.

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I then swapped loft ladders with her as her ladder was much better than ours. :mrgreen:

Somehow a single socket for the fridge freezer in the kitchen was playing up - after unplugging the previous fridge, the socket must have fell to bits as we couldn’t insert a plug back into it. When I undid it, I found it had 5 cables going to it! One cable went to a spur for a non-working alarm control panel (has never worked since she moved there) so I disconnected that and another one, after giving it a wiggle, came out of the wall. I found that it had just been taped up at the other end. Feck knows where it went to.

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Just a final clean up to be done by Mrs Mottie and her sister next Wednesday and they are leaving the buyers some flowers and fizz and the sale will be completed on Thursday. Just got to work out where to put the money - it's going to be split between high interest monthly paying accounts to go towards her care home fees.
 
Harry Bloomfield said:
I've just made use, once again today, of the little trailer I bought some months ago. I already had a tow-bar, on the car, for the caravan, so that part was 'free', in fact every car I've owned either came with a tow-bar fitted, or I quickly fitted one - because I've almost always had a caravan.
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Not long after Mrs filly got her Land Rover she picked picked me up from the pub and I was flicking though the different screens, 'dont do that' she said, anyway I carried on and a picture of a towbar came up, I said 'looks like you've got a towbar' I said, 'no it hasn't, I wouldn't buy a car with a towbar, I've never had a towbar. Anyway when we got home I told her not to switch off, I found the screen and touched the towbar picture and it said 'deploy towbar' I pressed yes then got out to go round the back to see it drop down turn round out from under the car then lock into position, she was furious, felt she'd been done.
 
fillyboy said:
Not long after Mrs filly got her Land Rover she picked picked me up from the pub and I was flicking though the different screens, 'dont do that' she said, anyway I carried on and a picture of a towbar came up, I said 'looks like you've got a towbar' I said, 'no it hasn't, I wouldn't buy a car with a towbar, I've never had a towbar. Anyway when we got home I told her not to switch off, I found the screen and touched the towbar picture and it said 'deploy towbar' I pressed yes then got out to go round the back to see it drop down turn round out from under the car then lock into position, she was furious, felt she'd been done.
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A fortune to have a tow bar fitted like that as an accessory. I am trying to get one for mine. £800 cheapest so far. Can get cheapo ones but still in the region of £500.
 
I've got to take a look at my car's ICE system - it's NAV system died, whilst we were away. I set to find a destination, got to the destination, and it popped up on the screen 'Have you arrived at your destination, do you want to exit?' - I have always just ignored it for years, but this time I clicked on 'yes', following which, the IGO Primo screen turned a funny colour. The NAV part of the ICE system, hasn't worked since, though screen works normally for radio/TV/reverse camera, just cannot get the NAV up.
 
We've been giving the caravan's cassette toilet, a good clean down, and trying to work out why we couldn't refit the cassette container, back where it belongs, in the side of the caravan. It seemed to jam on the way in, because of an almost square, sliding cover panel. The panel was supposed to slide out of the way, when the cassette went in, then cover it when the cassette was pulled out. The panel would fit into the slide either way, it had an arrow, on it, and on the side of the base, so we assumed the two arrows should be together.

We tried the panel both ways, and the cassette still wouldn't slide in. We spent the best part of an hour, trying to fathom it out, until we realised, the is an automatic vent knob on top, which was in the way of the panel sliding out of the way. Turn it 90 degrees, and it blocks the panel. turn it into line with the panel, and the cassette goes in without a problem.
 
Mottie said:
Been to a charity quiz night. Over £750 raised for cancer research. We came a respectable 3rd out of 10 teams although we only had 6 in our team tonight and all the others had 8 or 10.
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I surprised the team football expert when I got a question about football right that they didn’t even know. The question was "which football team member was known as 'the cat'". It reminded me of my very first post in my 'notable obituaries' thread.

Mottie said:
Thought I’d start this thread to mark the passing of those that have brought us fun, laughter, entertainment, sporting, music and other memories at some point in our lives. Feel free to add to it.

Today we lost:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/52261216
………Peter 'The Cat' Bonetti.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52261413
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I even got another question right that the footie 'expert' didn’t know - "What father and biological son have both won medals for being premier league winners". I somehow guessed it was the goalkeeping Schmeichels. I was on form that night!
 
I’m off this week and next week for Easter (I’m a lecturer) and Mrs IfInDoubtDIY is off on Mondays and Tuesdays as she works weekends, so I spent the morning doing some laundry and then made lunch - chicken leek and thyme pie.
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It was delicious - although I won’t use Tesco own brand “reduced fat puff pastry” next time as it doesn’t puff up as well as it should! In hindsight it’s a bit pointless having reduced fat puff pastry as it’s the presence OF the fat that makes it puff up!
 
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