Travelling On

Karmacat

Afternoon all  

Well, since the big county show last week, I've basically been hiding from the heat, and watching the foxes.  I've discovered that if they're close enough to a window, they can see through it 🦊 which led to a fair amount of shock/horror on their part, though not panic, which was good.  Oh, I also managed my first driving lesson 🚗  managed 90 minutes out of the two hours, ended up managing two right turns, it went well!  Shattering, but well, though I'm a bit scared I can't quite understand the accent of the teacher 👀 and he doesn't think he should make an effort to iron it out.  He's a good teacher, though, so I'll try to manage.

Anyway, I'm keeping up to date with the basics, and I've also cleaned sinks, been for walks, that sort of stuff - oh, and the rhubarb/onion mix is really successful, I must say - there's a tang I like.  No idea what spices I put in 🙄 and I might christen my stick blender when I do it again, rather than chopping everything so tiny, but these are minor things 😁

It does mean that I need another concentrated admin morning tomorrow:

- supermarket delivery: the bill came to £77.73.  So why was I charged £78.22?  49p more?  We'll see what appears on my credit card in a few days.  It reminded me to download the online statements, so that was good.  There's also a £9.46 gift card to take into account, and I don't know if they will (it never shows on the delivery statement).
Update: Asda have charged the £78.22, and then given me a credit of £9.95, which is exactly the amount of the £9.46 gift card and the overcharge on the bill of 49p.  Weird, but financially correct.  I'll check regularly in future.

-French tax office have sent me a link to open the proper tax account with them, after many, many years of paying without it - it must regularise things for them, I suppose - got to be done and dusted by end of this month.
Done it!  Even the phone number went in smoothly this time, and I logged back in immediately to check it was all working.

- I've also always ignored the owners meeting of the apartment block in France.  But this time, the people who run it say that if there's no quorum, they'll have to run it again at our charge - I presume that everybody else is ignoring it too 🙄🤣  so I'll send a ballot.  Hi ho.
Update: managed to log on to where the "Assemblee Generale" list of votes is published - maybe 30 votes, argh - all in densely packed technical French.  To understand it, I'd have to do a mass-cut-and-paste into an email for google translate to come into play, and I'd rather just give them my proxy/power of attorney, whatever, I've trusted them for nearly 20 years, no reason not to carry on.  Emailed saying so, and we'll see.
Updated update: I have to fill in a form, can't just do it by email.  That will need lots of cut and pasting into google translate, so I might not do it today, but at least I know how.

- need to finish off the 2nd part of the monthly money shuffle.
Update: Done, no problem.

Today is just bringing in the towels I washed, then watering the container plants, maybe a bit of weeding if the foxes are already frightened away, then cleaning the rest of the supermarket delivery.

Karmacat

Good afternoon I updated the previous email on the four admin tasks, as I did the work - I couldn't bear to do little post by little post 🤣  All I have left to do is fill in the pdf of the form for my management company in France, and I've done that before, it will be fine, but I need to do it either later or tomorrow.

Been footling around cleaning and tidying to avoid going out, but I *have* to now, to water the containers.  Might try to do a bit of weeding at the same time.

There are a few problems to be sorted: a molar, which I think was mostly filling, has had a corner of the tooth fall off, taken out by an oven chp 🙄 and I have broken glass on my front gate - some teenagers used it to do what they'd presumably seen in films, and smash the necks of their glass bottles of beer/whatever to open them.  I can only hope they haven't swallowed broken glass that may have fallen into their drink, in all seriousness.  I know who it was because I saw them after I'd left the house to go for a walk - I could see them clustered round my gate, but they walked off before I returned.  I suppose it's one of the perils of living opposite a rec. ground  

Karmacat

Proper grownup thing happened this morning: nice neighbour knocked asking to have some sprigs of rosemary, he'd seen a branch in the green bin I took some over to him, and really, the bushes both need digging up and replacing.  I'll do what he said he's going to do (I over-catered the sprigs ) try to grow some sprigs.  I'll hunt out something to help them root before I do.

We were catching up about Horrible Next Door Neighbour - I won't do that again, just talking about them makes my anger surface, so I'm shutting up about all of that now.

Genuine leftovers for lunch today - that rarely happens, so I'm very happy 🤣 I'm not even going to go for a walk, I'm going to use whatever outdoor energy I have to plant the chives I grew last year, after finishing clearing a patch.  Further back than I thought, wild garlic has colonised nicely.

Tomorrow preps are the issue: driving lesson at 10.15!  And i'm going to look online to see anything about braking on electric cars.  Feathering the brakes didn't work last week 🤣

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, are you learning in an electric? That's exciting! Good luck!

rtandon27

KC - is the car automatic rather than manual? I know OH says breaking is different when he drives a rental when we are over the pond.  Had not heard that electric was different - Uncle across the pond has a hybrid and says it is eerily quiet when driving but he'd not mentioned anything about breaking differences.

Karmacat

Cheery_Daff said:

Ooh, are you learning in an electric? That's exciting! Good luck!

I am!  It's a Peugeot E2008, a "small SUV" 👀 automatic too.  I'm learning how much you *don't* have to do in an automatic - you don't even need to take the handbrake off!  

rtandon27 said:

KC - is the car automatic rather than manual? I know OH says breaking is different when he drives a rental when we are over the pond.  Had not heard that electric was different - Uncle across the pond has a hybrid and says it is eerily quiet when driving but he'd not mentioned anything about breaking differences.

It is automatic, yes - the conversation I had with the teacher today is bang on for this point.  Modern manual cars are the same as electric cars in this respect - I think its the ABS braking system?  Not really sure.  But the cars I used 40 years ago, they're really different.  I remember braking quite hard and then by the time the car stopped, your foot should be completely off the brake.  It's not the same now!  I watched his feet when he was driving, instead of the road 🤣  and he touched the brakes *really* lightly.  So I did too, and it was much better.

The other thing is that when you're going forward, its not just D for drive - there's also B (I think?  I was *so* tired this morning).  Basically, it's whether or not regen braking is being used.  If it is, taking your foot off the gas is enough to slow the car a bit.  If it isn't and you're just in P, it will keep on going.  I like the regen braking  

I can feel it's all going to happen, but I do freak out at new situations.  And then adjust to them the very next time 😎

beanielou

A B?
Sure my car does not have a B.
Gets worried.

rtandon27

KC - don't quote me on it, as it's been many years since I've diven - but I think B in an automatic car is equivalent to 2nd gear which you use when going down a steep hill - I think these days it means Brake assisted driving - handy in Wales or anywhere mountainous (I'm thinking Canadian Rockies) - but for the life of me can't think where it would be of any use in middle (flat) England!!!

Karmacat

Omigod, what have I done 😮  I wouldn't swear it was "B", and I better not confuse my learning process by trying to integrate into anything else.  As far as I know, the "B" stands for "brake" with the regen braking - in that state, when you take your foot of the gas, the car automatically starts to decelerate, though it won't stop. 

And with that, I'm going to scuttle away from the whole topic, until I can beg the driving instructor to put me out of my misery a week tomorrow 👀

Life will carry on 🌞

It's probably "P" 🙃

Karmacat

Right, so here's the carrying on:

- I've backed up the external hard drive.  Need to do the genealogy stuff onto a flash drive too.  Just in case 🌞

- washing machine has just finished.  I'm waiting to put it out for another few minutes so things get a bit more dry in the back garden.  Rain!  Good grief, rarely seen the like.  With thunder & lightning.

- dishwasher and slow cooker to go on, and if possible I'll bake some of Jamie Oliver's eggless cake, in the halogen now I've got it properly cleaned.

- fill in the French form for the AGM and send it off.

- mend the lid of the recycling bin  it may not do much after all this rain, but better late than never.

- contact the dentist.  Action will be higher up the list than this!

- change bed.  

- bit of bathroom cleaning, again  

- that's a long and fairly boring list (off to see a friend tomorrow who has a course in the town next to me, so I need to do stuff).  So today I might play about with the genealogy.  There are lots of actual telegrams, the physical telegrams, from when my dad worked in Canada in the 1950s, it'd be nice to get them scanned and shared with bro and sister.