Right.. the car lives once more. In a state of flux now my thoughts are. Some people are saying “get a new one, flog it while you can”. Others are saying “you have spent so much on it now, you might aswell keep it”

I’m not entirely sure what to do, this time it cost 350 euro to get it fixed. New timing belt, head scraped and 8 new valves placed in it and various other bits n pieces. Its running fine again. On another car related note, i am going to join the AA this week. I’m damned if I am getting stuck on the road side again if the car breaks down.

Other side of things, sue seems to be getting on well in sweden. Got herself a bike to get around, still no sign of her broadband though. They are being extremely thick about the whole thing, they wont accept cash or credit cards. Like what company/person won’t take cash?

Well today i went to dublin to collect one of the new guys thats going to be working with us in our new offices. I was driving from home to dublin. The temp was around 24C and the humidity was fairly high. I got to dublin no problem. Got lost trying to get to Conolly station. Still not a problem, as I got myself sorted eventually.

However on the way out of dublin we were doing about 50Kph and the engine just calved. tried to restart it and there was a very nasty noise coming from the car. The timing belt snapped. Bollox. Needless to say, stuck on a dual carrage way, in todays heat beside a broken assed car was a smidgen upsetting.

I had to pay 80 euro for a guy to come out to the car and say “yes thats fucked” and to tow it back into town. We left it at the top of Gardiner street beside a fairly busy public park. Safe. I arranged for Greg, a living saint, to come and collect it. I brought Jon to eddie rockets for a bit of dinner and we awaited for Greg. Due to its weight we couldnt do much more than 80kph on the main roads in Gregs jeep. I just got home around 1:40am after leaving for dublin at 3pm on sunday.

Apparently because the timing belt was only changed in the past 6 weeks, there is a good chance I’ll be able to get it fixed for nothing. I practically spent 220 euro getting it back to carlow, between the tow into town, food, paying greg etc . Not happy considering I spent 1000 euro on it in April between servicing and a new head gasket. Needless to say once its fixed, its gone. I’m sick to my toncils at this point with it. So its bye bye out the door for it.

What a nice wee town …. It is actually a mad place to be, it is beautiful to look at. One MAJOR flaw, the people. Anyway Graig, or Graiguenamanagh. Its where I grew up, where I had many firsts. – a town of approx 2000 people with 14 pubs! A town such as Leixlip in Co. Kildare has about 22,000 people and has 7 pubs. The numbers simply don’t add up.

That aside I went down to meet ‘Doc’ one of my mates for a drink, louise came out for 1 aswell. So we had a few games of pool a few beers … then I had coke … ugh … minerals in the pub. I felt weird, sort of like when you were young visiting a local pub with a grandparent or something. Finished off the night in the chipper … ‘wooyeah’ I hear you cry.

I’ll be meeting some mutual friends of Sue and mine from Dublin on saturday night there. They were doing an all Ireland architectural tour. Basically they made a list of buildings that may be old but were ahead of their time when they were constructed. The tour ends in graig, beer + food + fun.

Saw her off to Sweden there on tuesday morning. A few emotional moments and boom she’s on a plane and in another country for 3 months. nuts!

Anyways she is gone working with her bestest friend Sarah L. Both of them are working in a lab doing er … the usual lab type work you’d expect to do in a lab