test please delete

[SueEllen]

I hope you put some of the crisps inside your sandwich.

That would have been organised.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Stone me it's dark out there.

[NickFitz]

Shopping done!

I was able to get a particularly fine specimen of Big Chicken, so I can finally get around to making a new batch of chicken & barley soup next week. And most importantly, the Christmas Viz Comic is out!

The car's battery is still failing, and it definitely seems to be correlated with the average temperature: after failing a few times, it was OK when things were a bit milder, then it's started giving up the ghost again the last couple of weeks when it's been colder out. This past week has been the coldest spell so far I think, and it'd got so low the blinking alarm light had stopped blinking

But I finally remembered, while jumpstarting it with the little battery pack (which is doing a great job so far), to take a photo of the battery so I have all the details necessary to get a new one. But first I'll have to work out how to deal with the terminal attachments, which have two bolts at right angles and no indication of which one I should undo, or even if it should be both

Once I've ironed that out, I'll bring the battery in and give it an overnight charge, as even the pre-shopping run down the M69 and back isn't going to give it as good a charge as it would get from going on a long run, or even just being used more often than once a week (or fortnight). A proper charge might see it through for a while longer yet.

[DoctorStrangelove]

The car may get upset if you disconnect it.

Some radios need a magic number to get them to work again.

[NickFitz]

The car may get upset if you disconnect it.

Some radios need a magic number to get them to work again.

The Orion has a magic number (I've changed its battery several times), but the Corolla hasn't needed one so far when it's gone flat. Maybe disconnecting the battery is different from it just being flat though? Maybe there's some magic Toyota incantation known only to mechanics?

The Halfords page for a battery of suitable size has a note about it possibly needing to be "registered with the car's computer" or some such, but perhaps a 2001 model is too old for that?

[NickFitz]

Thinking about it, I've just watched a few YouTube videos about changing the battery in a Corolla of its year range, and none of them mentioned anything about it.

Then again, most of them seem to forget something important. One of them fast-forwarded through all the bits of undoing the terminals, which is what I specifically wanted to see; another skipped the bit to do with putting the J-clamp of the battery holder back in place, which according to yet another seems like it would be the fiddliest part of the job as you have to locate it in a hole hidden behind and beneath the battery.

So forgetting to mention that "By the way, your car won't actually go after this unless you follow this 24-step process" would be par for the course

[ladymuck]

I don't tinker with such esoteric things. I know how to jump start my car and I'm happy to leave it at that.

That said, my radio is an after market one so doesn't have anything fancy going on. The battery dying / being replaced just clears its entire memory so I have to get the manual out to figure out how to find DAB radio channels and save them as presets.

[ladymuck]

The various food stuffs HWMBO ordered have all been delivered.

We have goat, veal, beef mince, bacon, cheese, charcuterie, chicken (whole and wings).

We are having veal escalopes for dinner later.

[ladymuck]

Noticed there's a new episode of Mock The Week to be watched. We finished Truth Seekers which was simple entertainment.

[ladymuck]

Ah... Club Gascon delivers tomorrow.

I think HWMBO is looking forward to making that meal. He says it's more about the sauces as a good sauce is hard to produce in small quantities for the time it takes to make.