Twisted Kites

Had my first camping of the year just over a week ago. Nicola’s first one ever so we decided on a week at Shell Island. Well that was the plan.

Arrived nice and early on the Friday (well about 10.30am but we did travel through rush hour, no major problems luckily). Gorgeous day, warm, slight breeze, fairly quiet on site. Set up the pitch and had a lovely day generally (apart from big group of lads being noisy and singing a song about Scuba Diving at 2am next morning, oh well you get them everywhere). Saturday was a bit more cloudier, breezier and wetter so not as good but still enjoyed it. Sunday morning we were woken about (just after midnight by noisy lads singing that horrible Scuba Diver song again, at least I also heard a warden tell them off, and then woken again at) 4am with the walls of our Vango Venture 500 tent boinging about making sleeping uncomfortable.

Seeing as we were awake and the wind was getting stronger still we went and sat in the car. Looking round many other people were up, and some tents were really taking a battering. Some people were sleeping through it all I think. Eventually we made the decision to put our gear in the car for safe keeping, then disassemble the tent til it calmed down a bit. But a pole was snapped so we made the decision to come home. Tent might have been OK but not risking it if the winds remained up. By 7.30 we were leaving the site, and some 100 or so people had done so already I think I heard. Man on the gate said 60-70 mph winds were reported up the Welsh coast.

So although the trip was spoiled, Nicola was not put off and at least we got a little trip and will have to go back sometime. Here’s a pretty picture.

At least I have my other tent (Vango Omega 450) from last year, so I can use that until we can afford an Outwell Montana 6 or something equally roomy and stable.

I wanna be a scuba diver…

I counted out the Kelloggs Rice Krispies from one of those small multipack boxes, 20g. Inside there were 1258 grains, give or take a few for margin of error.

Looking at the standard 30g serving you should get from a full size box, this works out at 1887 grains, although I expect from a big box there wouldn’t be as many teeny weeny tiny ones as in the little one. So maybe 1500 is a fair estmate, maybe more like 1800 though.

Now if it was a my-size portion it’d probably be about 50g, so am easily looking at (by taking an average of 60 grains per gram) 3000.

So there you have it!

I bought one of those iTrip FM broadcasters to play iPod in the car the other day. Don’t bother they’re not very good! Not just the poor sound quality, you get interference from other stations, other cars with their itrips on can be picked up, and some static if the cable is not routed perfectly, which is a nightmare. Then you have to store your ipod somwhere safe yet accessible (as you have to press play on it each time you start the car).

So I took that back to the Halfords yesterday, and I have decided that I’m going to install my Alpine X001 head unit (the one I had in the Mondeo) instead. The iPod plugs directly into that, the unit controls the iPod (so it can be stored away securely only to be removed when it needs syncing with iTunes), it keeps it charged and powered too and uses 24 bit DAC so no quality issues. And it’s complete with a beautiful screen with album artwork shown.

It is a shame that I’ll lose the steering wheel controls, the in-car display and the speed sensitive volume adjuster, but other head units may restore these so I can upgrade later. Ordered a fascia adaptor (as Renault unit is slightly bigger than standard) online as two Halfords and Elliots in Cov didn’t have the one I need in stock, the went into Renault to order a tray to replace the standard in-dash CD changer as it’s not compatible, which strangely cost £5.01. Hopefully the bits will be here by Wednesday or Thursday, I’d really like to get it fitted before I head to Wales on Friday. Thankfully fitting car radios themselves are a piece of cake.

As soon as I pulled out of the Renault dealer I felt a strange yet familiar roughness, only at low revs, like driving on cobbles. Turned the corner and on came that little engine light. I knew what it was from last time, another ignition coil had failed. When it happened back in January I had to call AA out to sort it, over an hour wait at work and £49 for the part. Although the very friendly AA man shown me how to check and replace them so this was my chance to try and remember it. Either that or call him out again after work at 2am.

So parked in work car park and popped bonnet, did the check, yep one had definitely failed. Took the bit out and walked back up the road towards Renault. Just before there is an A1 motor store so went there instead, I know they’ll be cheaper. £40 for the part, not too bad. Walked back down, put it in, rechecked everthing. Job done. No more than 20 minutes. I think after the holiday I’ll get a couple of spare coils so I’m prepared then.

The money which got refunded from the iTrip went on the part, and it failed after I’d been to two Halfords and a different A1 store, annoying! Oh well

OK so apparantly there are 1500 grains of rice in a bowl of Rice Krispies. That’s just begging to be counted…