car service

134715 km
changed
cabin filter (choked)
diesel filter (original)
oil+filter

New car battery

Whilst I hadn't had any particular battery problems (the car whinges about low battery if the doors are opened too much, but I think this is normal...), a friend had mentioned he thought the turn over in February was a bit slow.  It turns out the battery is the original, date stamped March 2007.  That makes it a good 7.5 years old.  A varta 400/640, which is probably 50Ah, as specified on the car battery cover.  Sites differed on opinion of the replacement type being either a 60 or 70Ah.  Now, I'm not known for being cynical, but if you get recommended a bigger battery, doesn't it cost more? So I settled on a 60Ah, a Varta again, for around £50 delivered, 4 year warranty (blue dynamic).  Just as well I got the Varta, as the battery cover has to be plugged into a tube running outside the cabin.  And the plug fitted the Varta cover just fine.

I tested the old battery.  I charged it up and it read 12.4 volts the next day after a rest period.  With a 7A load (a lamp) it dropped to 12V immediately, and over the next 4 hours dropped to 11.41V  During hour 5 it went to 7.2V  This makes its capacity around 30Ah, but presumably its CCA is well down.

DNS lookup error, or how I lost 4 hours

Well, thanks to BTs so called broadband, 4 hours of my life are gone forever.  It looks like BTs DNS wasn't working, or the router hadn't been updated with a valid address.  This did several odd things 1. IE and chrome only served up pages from google, but wouldn't follow links.  Oddly pinging did a DNS look up ok (perhaps US use a different DNS) 2. A lack of DNS meant that norton Internet antivirus took about 50% CPU trying to phone home (a guess). Tried a DNS cache flush, plus an IE reload, and messing with Norton settings

A router reboot fixed the problem.

The system settled down after that and Norton took very little cpu - say 5%.

Pond liner

The last lot of (biblical) rain did for the pond liner.  It got pushed right up by water either pouring down the bank above, or a spring between 2 layers of clay.  The pond was well lined in clay, with the slightest trickle coming in from the west side.
As a stop gap, we've dug down around 350mm on the east side and put in a drainage channel.  This was a 80mm tubes placed in a small bed of gravel up against the liner, then back filled with soil.

10/8 2 months rain in an our today, pushing the liner out again.  Water did flow out of the new drain, but not quickly enough.  The only place water seemed to be getting in was the top left corner, so we've dug in some liner at that point to divert water straight into the pond, rather than trying to get behind the liner.
We syphoned the water from beneath the liner into an old bath, then put it back it.  A further 300l pumped in had the level back up to almost normal.

Water Butts

After a mere 2 years of the water butts sitting on pallets and grass, being filled manually, they have finally found a new home, on the utility side of the house.  This is the area where little grows as it is a bit boggy.

Couldn't help myself and I've kept  a pallet for all the other junk...

Drains

Not a subject close to my heart, but our drains seem to be playing up.  One loo isn't clearing sometimes.  I pulled the loo out and it was not blocked.  So I finally dug up the line that runs the length of one side of the house.  A 600mm section was removed (500, the enlarged to 600 to allow for 2 slip couplings) and 2 Y pieces & inspection covers installed (siliconed) to allow rodding in either direction; not that I can rod far, as the rods get stuck on the corners if pushed around.  I found out the hard way and had to dig up another section by the front door, drill a 25mm hole, dislodge the rod connector and pull the rods out.  A solvent glue patch was put back over.

Finishing bedroom 1

Moved some of the furniture around and got half the skirting in place.  2 coats of Danish oil