Phuey

I hope to be able to post some positive news on this blog sometime soon, but today it’s going to be a series of grizzles!

My car blew a head gasket the other week. That’s something I would normally fix myself, but given my time constraints these days and the fact that I need car, I had it fixed by a real mechanic. $1200 and a week later it was supposed to be all better. I was pretty happy about it too as it’s a long walk to William’s day care and I had no desire to keep making it.

So when I jumped into the car and noticed a strange knocking when the engine fired up, I was concerned. After a few kilometres it was sounding awful and all I could do was drive it carefully home again. This was of course Friday afternoon and the mechanic couldn’t come back out until Monday. Just to be safe, and to be prepared when the mobile mechanic returned, I decided to get a second opinion as to what had gone wrong. First thing Monday morning I drove to a nearby workshop to see what the mechanic there thought was the problem.

Waiting at the traffic lights at the corner of the mechanics workshop I heard a loud bang behind me, followed instantly by a louder second bang and a solid whack in the back. Yes, some Einstein had failed to stop at the lights and had rammed the car behind me, which in turn slammed into me. Fortunately, the damage isn’t too bad and my only injury was a head ache for the day. The car still drives ok, although there is a rattle at the back.

After swapping insurance details with the other two drivers I got my second opinion and headed home, the car now sounding more than ever like a tractor at the front, and remodelled for the worse at the rear.

The problem was a loose timing chain guide which the mobile mechanic fixed, but now I’m going to be without the car again while it’s at the panel beaters. Grrrrrrrrr.

Much more worrying though has been William. We took him to the Doctor’s after he was vomiting and had diahrea for twenty four hours. But it hadn’t got any better and eventually last night Jo took him to the children’s hospital. I was extremely frustrated that I couldn’t go, but after cleaning up his vomit and poo for five days I had some of his symptoms as well and couldn’t travel.

It turns out he has Rota virus, which is a nasty gastro bug. He was dehydrated and they put him on a nasal feeding tube for four hours. Poor Jo got home at 4.30 this morning.

Today he has been much better, not quite as listless and eating and drinking in small amounts. Hopefully he will continue to improve again tomorrow.