All Posts in "Coolant"

It’s been sweltering recently, and with predicted global warming, the trend is for colder, wetter winters and drier, hotter summers.  That said, I wonder if the UK will go the route of central air conditioning.[ad#ad-1]

After weeks of attempting to rectify the car problems, the mechanic thinks the head gasket has gone.  Luckily, he passed us on the road, shortly after he had fitted in a new hose pipe for the coolant.  We were on our way to the gym.  It was lucky for us that my daughter had insisted on going to the gym that day (she refuses to go sometimes).  Otherwise, we might have been heading a different direction with disastrous results.  We had to turn around and made other arrangements for the girls to attend their afternoon activities with Stagecoach.  We took a couple buses to town.

As we waited for the kids to finish, my husband and I lunched under a tree in the church cemetery.  Afterwards, we decided to go to the library, expecting it to be cooler.  Whew!  It was sweltering in there.  We decided to go back outdoors and spent the rest of the afternoon under a tree at the school.

I couldn’t understand why there wasn’t air conditioning in the library.  And, if there is, why wasn’t it on?  I can’t believe that anyone could possibly work in such conditions.  I know many public buildings have air conditioning, so why not the library?

My husband then commented that school examination halls were like that.  He recalled taking exams in hot, stuffy halls.  What were they thinking?  In the US, examination halls tend to be on the cool side.  We’re always reminded to take a sweater, just in case.  The heat makes people sluggish and it’s well documented that people perform worse on exams in the heat.[ad#ad-1]

Well, we’re renting a car right now and it has a functioning air conditioner.  What a difference in this heat.  Our car didn’t have air conditioning and I was constantly sweating.  And when the sun is beating down on you through the windshield, it burns.

And, as I’ve complained before, we have screenless windows, so if we must open the windows to air out the house, we have to accept the herd of insects that we openly invite inside.

Yank by — July 1, 2009 in Weather 0

Don’t you just love it when your car breaks down?  It’s happened so often in the last few days that I’m ready to get a new one.  Only one problem.  We can’t afford to.  It our only car and if we don’t have it, we can’t get anywhere.  The problem with living in remote areas of the villages, you need a car.[ad#ad-1]

My husband thinks he’s diagnosed the problem.  We have a crack in the pipe between the coolant and the engine.  At least, that the glaringly obvious diagnosis.  Whatever else is wrong remains to be resolved after this issue is.  Unfortunately, we can’t get the part for him to fix it himself.  However, our local mechanic thinks he’ll get it in by tomorrow.  Thank God for trustworthy local mechanics.

In the meantime, the mechanic has wrapped the crack in duct tape.  We Americans fix everything with duct tape, so we couldn’t laugh at his methods.  We’re also carrying extra gallons of water in the car.  It’d be so easy if we didn’t have to drive everywhere.  I guess I should be glad we’re expecting rain.

Yank by — May 13, 2009 in My Journey 4