General Witterings -
No Woofs on Rosy

Jess the Woof has now ... gone.  Rex, her owner reappeared, having got fed up with hanging around in Scotland waiting for an operation.  He returned to Scotland for a booked operation to adjust the position of his artificial heart valve, which had moved.  On arrival in Scotland, he was told that his operation was delayed for a few days, and a few days after that, he was told that it was further delayed.

He was staying with relations who run a sheep farm, who had BIG problems when the 80 mph (gusting to 110+) winds started blowing - the wind kept blowing the sheep over!!  Sounds Pythonesque, but there is a serious side.  A mummy sheep, about to give birth to two or three sheeplets, is pretty much helpless when blown over, and can easily damage herself and/or the lambs whilst trying to right herself.  Such a sheep is also quite heavy, so Rex managed to herniate himself.  The hernia doctor suggested putting Rex on the operating table whilst he did the hernia repair work, and, when that was finished, the heart crowd could come in and tweak the valve.  The heart man objected, saying that two ops in one day was too much for a 68-year-old, and then a row started as to which would come first, the hernia or the heart.

At this point, Rex said "Sod the lot of you" (or words to that effect), and came back to France, waiting for them to resolve their argument, and agree operation dates.

So he's back.

And Jess has gone.

I was walking down a street, here in Briare, that I hadn't been down before.  A truck was parked in front of a shop front.  The sign on the shop read 'ANGÉLIQUE'.  Now, I had been idly wondering where the local knocking shop was located, so it was good to have the problem solved...

...Except that the truck moved away, revealing the whole sign:

ASSEMBLÉE EVANGÉLIQUE.

With Jess out of the way (did I tell you that she has gone?) I got down to the serious work of the winter - curing an ongoing leak in the engine cooling system.  Coolant is leaking out of a core plug in an expansion box associated with the pump.  Draining to coolant (it needs replacing anyway) and stripping everything down proved much easier than I had feared.  I'm now about to try the 'epoxy metal putty' cure.  Putting it back together again doesn't look too tricky, once I crack the gasket problem (I don't have any).

Meanwhile, World War One has re-erupted on the canal basin, with the daddy ducks going at each other hammer and tongs, whilst the mummy ducks are looking even more supercilious.

That's all for this week.

Toodle pip!!

Bill