The Car is back

Well, we got the car back yesterday, and you'd never know it was damaged in the first place. When I lifted the bonnet (hood, for ms US readers) to have a look at what they'd done, I was a bit confused at first, as I couldn't find the front cross-member, which had been dented. On closer inspection, I found that instead of running straight across the front as I had thought, it was curved outwards and ran inside the front bumper. Which means that the damage was worse than I had thought - instead of putting a small buckle into a straight member, Chrissy had actually managed to bend the entire member back against it's original curvature and displace it 6 to 8"

Ah well. Nobody was hurt and we have the car back now. Here's to a long time before the next repair.

Car update

OK, the garage has sent the repair estimate (~£2100+) to the insurance, and we are waiting for the insurance to give the go-ahead. For those who want details, this is the damage as I know it:

Front bumper - hole punched through it
Front cross-member - dented & buckled
Radiator - bent & punctured
A/C radiator - bent, maybe punctured
Assorted supporting brackets etc damaged

Mmmmm.......Tasty.......

Chrissy and Bowch made some gorgeous flapjack yesterday. They used treacle instead of golden syrup, which is a nice change.

I think I'll go and have a piece for breakfast.....

More building work

Now that everything has dried out, the insurance has sent round a builder to get the kitchen wall sorted out. The old plaster is now off, the kitchen is full of dust, and he's due back today to make a start on putting the new plaster up.

More painting.

Well. the paint shop got their mixing machine fixed, so yesterday Chrissy went up there and picked up the rest of the paint we need to get the outside house finished. If the weather holds, it should eb done in the nest few days.

Another hole....

But this time it's in the car.....

Chrissy had a "fender-bender" yesterday. She and the kids are fine, as it was a low speed bump. They were heading out to Graeme's on the back road. It's an unclassified road that's very narrow in places, and today there was a lot of muck on the road that had fallen off a tractor. A car coming the other way came over the hill in the middle of the road, and the car in front of Chrissy braked sharply. When Chrissy braked, she slid on the muck and went into the back of the car in front.

Nobody was hurt, but their tow-hitch punched a hole in our bumper and damaged the radiator, so our car is now off to the garage for a few days.

There's a(nother) hole in my roof!

(two weeks ago)

Well, the roofers have now started on the kitchen roof as well. The old roof was as bad as we had feared, but we'll do the details another time. For now, heres a pic of the roofers putting the new roof on,


and here's a pic of what happened when the roofers found out the hardway how weak the old roof was.....


One of the roofers put his foot on the wrong bit, and fell most of the way through, catching himself by his elbows! He wasn't hurt, just surprised and embarrassed! This photo was taken after the new roof and insulation had been put on, but shows what happened to the inside of the roof.