Wellsy's World

Archive for February, 2010

I wanted to get Kirsty a car so should could run the kids about, do the shopping and most importantly, drive to the pub for a meal so I can get nicely toasted! Anyway I found a nice cheap Fiesta on eBay and went to pick it up today. I got Clint to give me a lift down there to Halesowen and I would drive it back. Simples. Or was it.

Well apart from the fact that neither of us could be bothered to listen to what the sat nav was saying so didn’t know where to go at every single junction on the way down, we got there fine, had a look at the car, bought it and filled in the paperwork. All we had to do then was head back – and that’s when things started to go wrong…

We went to leave and Clint was going to take the lead since he had my sat nav – unfortunately the sat nav was having a bit of an episode and wouldn’t turn on. So the guy we’d bought the car from was standing on his drive making sure we got off ok and instead there was me with my head stuck in the window of my mate’s Corsa looking like a couple of scallies and bringing down property values. The guy got bored and went inside.

We eventually set off and headed to Sainsbury’s to get fuel. As we got there my phone went – it was the guy we bought the car off. He was very appologetic but we’d forgotten to sign the log book, could we come back. Not a problem. So Clint shoved soem fuel in but it wasn’t so easy for me… I couldn’t get the bloody filler cap open! Slightly embarrassing what with everyone in the long queue looking at me as if I’d just dropped my trousers in public. Anyway, I heroically gave up, waited for Clint and then we went back to sign everything.

We set off again and this time everything was going well. After a few miles we hit the motorway at one of the those junctions where there’s a sliproad going onto the motorway immediately followed by one going off. I followed Clint and he pulled onto the motorway in front of a van. I had to slip in between that van and another van – not a problem, all I had to do was wait for a gap and I could pull catch Clint up – he did have the sat nav after all. Just as I got to the bit where the slip road seperates itself from the motorway and there’s no way you can get off I notice a familiar shape to my left – yes, Clint had changed his mind and headed back off the motorway – leaving me feeling slightly nervous in a car that could break down at any moment, but most importantly…. lost.

Next time I’m taking two sat navs.

Following a trip to the office Lucie decided that she wanted another hamster, I accidentally lost her 1st one. This was because she spotted the one that has appeared in the office, so we took her to “pets at home” to get one as an early birthday present.

After getting it home Lucie decided to call him OSO, after her favourite TV programme. Holly is also fascinated by it too, so if you want to keep 2 small children entertained by a hamster, it’ll only cost approximately £30 to set it up with a cage and everything.

Once we’d got it tamed Kirsty brought it upstairs to show Lucie, which would of been fine except Kirsty let it go and it escaped under our bed! This then involved me shifting the bed while Kirsty tried to catch it, which Lucie found hilarious. This wasn’t working so I tried to catch it, which I eventually did, then the bloody thing crapped on me!

The moral to this story? Don’t let the hamster out of the cage without it’s ball. Failing that don’t let Kirsty loose with it.

The other day Kirsty took the kids to feed the ducks. After all the bread had gone Lucie decided that she was going to pretend to be a duck, so Lucie was quacking and waddling along following a duck. This in itself was very funny to watch but to make it funnier Holly started flapping her arms and quacking too!

Lucie then started pretending to be other animals. At first it was regular animals, (dog, cat, lion). Then she started walking sideways doing what looked like a mexican wave, when asked what she was doing her response was: “I’m being a spider of course”. She then started crouching saying “snuffle, snuffle”. When asked what she was pretending to be this time she said: “A hedgehog of course, silly mummy”. It makes it more amusing when Holly attempts to copy her big sister.

She makes it sound so obvious you’re left thinking of course, why didn’t I think of that?

So when it snowed the other week I was driving back into the carpark at work and hit a patch of ice under the snow. I was only in second, not going very fast but slid into the fence post by the gate. In the old days when car bumpers were made of metal I think I would have gotten away with a dent in the bumper and nothing else. With modern cars and their plastic matching bumpers though it’s a different matter.

I ended up sliding into the post at an angle catching the corner of the car (Ford Focus, 2008 model) – it ended up trashing the bumper and the fog light which is mounted in the bumper then stopping the car by hitting the wing which deformed it slightly. Even though this was at low speed because of the angle I ended up doing quite a bit of damage so although there was no structural damage it was going to be quite expensive to fix.

The first thing that most people would do is ring the insurance company and get them to fix it, however to keep my insurance premium below £1000 a year I had opted for a £500 excess. That with the loss of two years no claims would mean that an insurance fix would end up costing me around £650. That’s a lot. I figured I could get it done cheaper without involving the insurance company. Something that worked out quite well as in the same week my neighbourgh but the same thing and the insurance company shipped her car off to a garage for nearly a month – at great expense to her ultimately.

Anyway, I could have gone to a garage privately but since I like doing mechanical stuff I thought I’d give it a go myself. I started by hitting eBay and seeing what I could get. I basically needed a new bumper, wing, fog light and then getting it painted the right colour – Sea Grey. The best bit was the bumper. I found a guy selling Focus 08 bumpers in various colours so I contacted him and asked if he’d got one in grey – it is a popular colour for the new MKIII Focus. I’m guessing he has the bumpers in stock and sprays them on request as next morning he put a Sea Grey one on ebay for me. The fog light wasn’t a problem either but the wing I could only get primed in black ready for painting. Still – I got all the parts I needed for under £200. Having the wing sprayed will cost me a £100 at a Ford dealership so if you exclude my time then I will have saved over £350 by doing it myself.

So, putting it all together. I set aside last weekend to strip it all down and put the new stuff on. I spent most of the day on Sataurday removing the old bumper and wing and was just managing to get the wing on as it was going dark. That just left Sunday to put the rest of the wing on and then the bumper followed by the trimmings like radiator grill and fog lights. It’s not as hard as I thought it was going to be – most of it is clips holding the bumper in place with a few bolts here and there. The wing was most difficult but still easy enough to do yourself if you were considering it.

All I need to do now is take it into the Ford dealership for a spray one day and it’s done. Here’s a quick shot of what it looked like Saturday afternoon.