There is good news on both counts.

It's been a busy time for us both since arriving back on FS. More so for Ian having to sort out all the problems with MB including one not so nice, in fact down right nasty! Stupidly, we travelled back to FS with a full cassette. All the going around corners and not being able to avoid potholes meant the contents got well and truly mixed. It was as we pulled onto the drive and I went to turn off the fridge that the smell grabbed my attention. On investigation (Ian pulling the cassette out of the housing) the discovery made was most unpleasant. The contents had somehow leaked out and partially filled the tray, Ian drew the short straw and, with rubber gloves on, set to cleaning it the best he could. Meanwhile, the small carpet rug in the bathroom was also found to be stained, so into the bin that went. Floors cleaned and bleached, and we thought that to be the end. But no, still a smell continued and only be my getting down on hands and knees, sniffing the main carpet, did we realise it had seeped under the door and into that! Then I had to get up! Good job no one around to watch because being confined as I was to a small area, it would have made people laugh. Anyway, I managed eventually, but had no choice other than to remove the carpet and for me to give it a good scrub. The cassette was found to have a leaky valve, it was this that allowed some of the liquid to spill out. A new valve was purchased, and we hope this will have solved the problem.

 

As to the list of jobs to do, well, the bed has been fixed, Solar charger still under investigation, brakes will be changed on Wednesday when it goes into the garage, water hose and pipe fixed, Microwave fuses have been ordered, starter motor and battery looked at but a lot of head scratching over that, (Ian is still convinced it has a lot to do with the battery not charging from the solar panel and the Sargent Unit is to blame) and the damaged panel on the van may have to wait until after our Shetland journey. 

It sounds as if Ian has been doing all the hard work, well in a way he has, but I haven't been idle either. One of my biggest bug bares in the recent months has been the computor. Slowed right down and waiting for any program to open was painful. We have a lovely chap (Guy) that normally sorts this out for me, so before handing it over, I decided to look through and sort all my photos since 2023. As you can imagine, this has taken days and the amount of deleted photos numbered in the thousands. In fact, before I started, my folders had 194 GB of photo files in them! Having backed up nearly 70 GB onto another hard drive, deleted the rest, my one and only folder left has but 14.5GB of photos. The document file came next, deleting all the dross gathered over the years, and guess what? The computor runs nearly as fast as when I first got it. Well that has saved a few quid in getting the lovely Guy in to sort it!

So now to the heading.

I have had a great result in getting compensation for my camera. A face to face 'Microsoft Teams' call from the liability adjuster, Portsmouth Water, has resulted in my claim being accepted and the cost of the camera refunded. Asked if I wanted to make an injury claim, I declined, and I do believe this is what swayed him to not only give me the full price of the camera, but £250 more. What a great result, and today I have heard from the doctors that my fears of having a blood transfusion in 1984 were unfounded, as no mention of that was in my notes. I can now breathe easy, phew!