No, quiet, sunny, warm, no wind, dreamy, on the point of being boring, not!
Tricia's "Utility handlebars".
Been having e-mail conversations with a fellow Calder 5er owner, "Z". It concerns utilising the hot exhaust gases from the MS furnace, they are very hot and waste a lot of heat, typical American inefficiency.
Now a little about "Z" (no names, no pack drill, but otherwise know as Paul Wright, 143 Acacia Avenue, Macclesfield, SK11 6BT), he's a recently de-frocked scout leader, model maker and itinerant air craft designer who, until recently, worked for BAe.
Unfortunately due to a blunder while re-designing a leading edge profile in Google Sketchup (AutoCad being outside his meagre grasp), an inadvertent movement of the cursor caused the whole fleet of Nimrods to be scrapped at a cost of £4B to us tax payers. He is now with AirBus, so the next time you get on an A320, count the engines.
He also has a severe lack of taste as he chose a rear lounge 5er, over the much superior rear kitchen layout i.e. mine.
Some slightly deeper background on “Z”.
He moved on from Acacia Avenue and now lives in his 5er and flits from CL to CL, just ahead of the authorities. He cohabits with a pretty young thing that he beguiled with the fact that she is slightly short sighted and the promise of a hefty inheritance from a sick uncle living in a 62 foot narrow boat on the lee shore of Wigan Pier. Living with them are a full sized stuffed kangaroo called “Benny”, two raggedy arsed Airedales, one call Rex, the other one not, and a one legged, one eyed, female, red bearded French parrot named “lucky”, who lives in a cage on top of the TV.
They are a basically happy couple who spend their days working and their evenings trying to get to grips with the finer points of “fives and threes”, fighting Ludo and who will win the 3:30 at Lincoln.
Anyroadup, as he would say, in discussion of how to harness this wasted heat and somehow direct it back into the MS without killing ourselves with carbon monoxide, amongst other things, it was decided to use some kind of heat exchanger. It is a particular problem for Z and his partner as their heating failed a few weeks ago and now they are reduced to Z sucking a “Fisherman's Friend” and she sits round his tongue, sometimes they light a candle if they are feeling flush.
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| VW HE |
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| Nimrod MRA4 HE |
He download me some schematics (sounds like something out of “24”) and after visiting a local scrap yard I came up with this. If it looks a bit like heat exchangers from a VW Beetle, circa 1972, that's because that's what it is, with some “Z” modifications of course. He originally had designed a couple of short stubby wings on it but I think that was just a old habitual genetic thing. It looks like a design by Heath Robinson when he did a stint on Blue Peter. Z also mentioned that he may be able to “get hold of”, his words not mine, a more sophisticated model and four days later this turned up, it's bomb bay heat exchanger unit from a MRA4 Nimrod, how odd?
The fitting instructions he sent were both very technical and vague, apparently the 58mm hole I have drilled through the back of the MS is a coffee cup stain. Also,I was to use “a Mil Spec, 1,000 volt insulated spade head screwdriver, with a bifurcated stem and demagnetised tip”, when I told him I did not have one his answer was “Ah...just use a coin”.
Of course if it works, next year we will be millionaires, if not, we'll be suffocated.
More later when I receive the blue prints from Z on how it will be attached and integrated into the MS heating system..
Meanwhile, cycle ride to Roquetas just for the joy of it, my toe(s) prevents long walks but not long cycles, although it would regale against using a penny farthing. Stopped for possibly the only bad tapas we have ever had in Spain, or anywhere else, if that matters. Back, lie in sun and read.
Tonight we are re-visiting the lamb stew with potatoes with some nice red wine. Doms and then we are going to get disk three of TLOTR, thank God I can drink tonight.
Sunderland got beat 3-2 off bloody Stoke City, damn!
Tomorrow it's still BAWID and chucky egg day, the latter first however.
Sunday 6th February 2011.
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| A bull market (more like BS) |
Off to the El Toro market at the, yep you guessed it, bullring. More upmarket market, not just “tat” clothes etc. Pulled a stroke and only took €21.74, how much did she spend, €21.74. A jumper and a piece of collectable porcelain and almost a wooden lizard, which apparently we will get next time when we will “BRING MORE MONEY”. BTW she has her own money but much prefers to spend mine as it “heightens” the shopping experiance.
Rest of the day lie in sun, eat lunch and dinner, watch final, thank God!, TLOTR, no doms, then bed. Just finished a Lee Child book that I remembered I had read two years ago, I remembered three pages from the end who had done it, dementia is not a completely bad thing I guess?
Monday 7th February 2011, washing day, enough said.
Tuesday 8th February 2011.
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| Vicar cycle ride |
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| Vicar cycle ride |
All that is planned is a short cycle to Mercadona for shopping and then take in the rays but changed our minds and went through to Vicar instead. Called in to Mercadona on the way back and as I was locking the bikes up outside a young Spanish chap came over and explained that my cycle lock should be stronger. What he was actually doing was trying to the the combination as I had not locked it yet. Kept my hand over the dials and after a while he lost interest and wandered off, Tricia
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| Vicar cycle ride, market |
shopped and I stayed by the bikes.
Lunch and a lie down.
You're not right are you mate?
ReplyDeleteI mean, funny as hell, daft as a brush......
but defo not right!
:-) :-) :-)