PeanutWood

Garden visitors

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

Its been a bit manic since we got back from Florida. We’ve both been back to work, had the Civic in the garage again for a service and final resolutions to the bugs (that will be the subject of another blog post soon…give me chance to test the car properly), been to a cricket match and lots of other things. Jet lag? We’ve not had time for it!

Typically the one piece of machinery you don’t want to break returning from holiday – the washing machine – broke as soon as we returned. Our washing therefore has been distributed to numerous points in Milton Keynes, and we hope to have a new machine installed next week. Talk about lousy timing!

Before we went away, we bought a new hutch for Grumpy, sorry, Biggles. When we got home the rabbit went back into his old hutch until we could move the new one back from my parents. This we achieved last night, and pulling up at the drive we saw we had a visitor:

2040 2043

Opening the gate our prickly friend moved into the back garden, where he then sat firmly against the garden wall wondering why were disturbing him. Biggles watched on, having already won a battle recently with a much larger intruder, and clearly fancied his chances! Eventually the hedgehog moved on, and we have no idea where he is now. But it goes to show that even in the middle of Milton Keynes we have wildlife!

Posted in General | No Comments »

A step forward from Honda

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

The Civic went in for day 24 of its maintenance nightmare today.

Bumper number 5 is the correct colour. Almost. Its so close at a glance you wouldn’t notice, but in certain lights I think it’ll look a little bit different. But what the hell, its the closest of the five that have been ordered so far. Number 1 was damaged. Number 2 was bright blue – much brighter than the rest of the car. Number 3 was on the car until today, and was brighter too, but not quite so bad as number 2. Number 4 was another one delivered to the dealership damaged and finally along comes number 5 – almost perfect in almost all respects. I’ll let it go now.

As for the VTEC/stutter/crap engine/crap economy, well they’ve upgraded the ECU software to work out some problem with the oxygen sensors. I’m no engineer, but I understand the oxygen sensors control the fuel mixture, which could in turn lead to the engine running rough and burning more petrol than it should. Well, I’ve only driven a handful of miles since but it does seem a little bit better, the car is smoother at low speeds and the stutters are not quite as noticeable. The economy is up at almost 40mpg for a return trip to Cranfield which is again a slight improvement, but its early days. I will be monitoring it closely…

They also fixed the boot, which was almost impossible to shut without brute force, and the windscreen washers which had stopped spraying on a third of the window.

So, its a start. Shame it took me going in there and kicking up a stink. On the negative side, I rang Honda Customer Service again yesterday. The person I needed to speak to was out of the office, but would ring me on Thursday. Its now 20:30, no call back yet…

Posted in General | No Comments »

The Honda nightmare continues

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008

Within two hours of returning from the USA I got a phone call from Honda to say that the Civic – which had been in the garage for the entire duration of our holiday – was ready. No fix on the stuttering VTEC, that is normal apparently (more about that later). The front shocks had been replaced, but the bumper hadn’t as the third bumper they ordered looked “totally” different. They would order a fourth and get it fitted as soon as possible.

I went into the garage and made my feelings clear. The VTEC was explained to me again (it still doesn’t make any sense to be honest), and I was told that there is nothing they can do. The promised software update doesn’t exist, and they don’t know why they thought there was one. The Civic Forums though disagree with Johnsons, and one person in particular reckoned that putting the ECU Rewrite onto his car made it slightly more driveable, but still stuttering. Johnsons wouldn’t put this update on my car though, they reckon its only for iSHIFT or CTDi cars. So I left the garage, telling them to contact me as soon as the bumper was ready and I’d take up the crappy engine with Honda UK directly.

That was 30th January. Not heard a peep since, despite a couple of emails and a few phone calls. Today my patience snapped, and I had a bit of time available so into the garage I ventured once more to get answers.

Seems that someone “forgot” to order the bumper. Oh dear. Apologies for that. As for the lack of correspondence, well the manager said he thought it wasn’t required because I’d spoken in depth with an engineer about the issues. On a plus note, I collared another engineer who said there was now a software update available to correct some issues with “oxygen sensors” which MAY make the car smoother and more driveable. I asked why I hadn’t been notified about the update, and got the usual wishy-washy response.

So tomorrow the car goes for its 24th day in the garage since its delivery on 5th June. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to post positive news – a more driveable, smooth motor and a bumper that matches. But don’t get your hopes up…

Posted in General | No Comments »

Its all gone Mickey Mouse…

Friday, January 4th, 2008

…on PeanutWood that is. Over the Christmas period I’ve completed the reworking of the site and Wordpress and Gallery2 are now fully integrated and working as I’d like them. In the past I’ve written all the code for PeanutWood myself and then bolted extras on from the net as required, and its never worked quite as I’d wanted it. Moving the site to JAB gave me new motivation to make the site perfect. Facebook? Pah! PeanutWood is back!

Over Christmas the site had a wintry theme, but now Christmas is over for another year its time to move on. That’s why we’ve gone all Mickey Mouse, in honour of our impending trip to the USA. The site will get regular retheming as we both see fit.

I’m left with but one annoying bug on this current theme. In the past I’ve never really made sure the site is compatible with a variety of browsers, but with Wordpress I don’t have to worry. It should always be compatible. I’ve checked the site on IE7, Firefox and Opera and it looks fine. However if you are running IE6 or earlier the logo looks awful. I apologise for this – its a bug where older IE browsers can’t cope with .PNG images. I’m working on a fix over the weekend – I will not be beaten.

Everything else works fine. While in the USA we will be regularly blogging by email to keep you all up-to-date on what we are doing. If we can find a wifi hotspot we’ll update the Galleries too. Check the site regularly, or subscribe to the RSS feeds, to read our regular ePostcards from America!

Posted in General, PC/Internet | No Comments »

Bah Hondabugs

Friday, December 28th, 2007

I’ve been the proud owner of my first brand new car – a Honda Civic – since June 2007. Overall I’ve been very pleased with it. Space-age looks inside and out, nice to drive, spacious, and economical.

Economical until the end of September that is, when the economy started to drop from 38mpg/tank down towards the 32mpg mark. This was noticed in tandem with a stutter at certain rev ranges. Much investigation ensued from the garage until they found that the stutter was an “engine characteristic” of the VTEC cutting in and out.

Not happy with this answer I test-drove a similar Civic and sure enough it had the characteristic, but not like my car. More checks showed the valve clearances to be too big and a cracked spark plug. But still the stutter remains. Now Honda are promising a software update in January to “fix” the problem. We shall see.

To compound my misery I got rear-ended and needed a new bumper. Because of the newness of the car I thought Honda would do the work best. Wrong. The new bumper, sprayed with the same batch of paint by Honda in Swindon looks nothing like the rest of my car.

And to cap it all yesterday the car started making a rubbery squeak from the front-right area. I found a trapped and detached door seal, but that didn’t cure it and a further test-drive reveals a suspension problem!!!

So in January my car is going into the garage to have the VTEC looked at again, the bumper redone, the suspension fixed plus a couple of other small snags. There is also a recall out on a dodgy handbrake. And they say Honda is the height of reliability? After all this, I expect to have a Civic I can be happy with again. Failing that they can have the keys back. I’m beginning to realise how Jenson Button felt last season…

Oh, and Happy New Year to you all!

Posted in General | No Comments »

War of the Worlds

Monday, December 24th, 2007

After booking the tickets way back in March 07 the day finally came round.  On the 22nd Dec 07 we (Alison, Alan and myself) made our way down the roadwork stricken M1 to the O2 Arena to watch Jeff Waynes War of the Worlds.  We got there early enough so that we could grab some dinner before the show started.  There are a huge range of restaurants dotted all around the main arena.  We ended up in the S & M Cafe which stood for the Sausage & Mash Cafe (not what you were all thinking!).  The sausages were lovely and the puddings were good too! 

Finally we made our way to the arena doors (H) and waited in line to go through the security checkpoint – a quick bag search.  Walking into the arena itself we made our way to our seats.  We were not quite on the flat section at the base of the arena, but the second row back on one of the side seating areas.  We had an excellent view of the stage and myself and Alison were very excited to see the large percussion section so clearly.

The show started at 20:00 to tremendous applause.  Immediately the goose bumps hit me – wow this was amazing live.  The whole show was awesome and all of the perfomers played their parts very well.  Justin Westwood sounded the same as the album and Phil Thompson has an amazing voice.  The priest (Nathanial) was played by John Payne who whilst looking slightly like Meatloaf was absolutely brilliant.

The orchestra were superb and again myself and Alison were engrossed by the drum kit & percussions section.  I would love to be able to drum like that – AMAZING!

All the effects were very well done, part of which is a huge tripod alien that lowers from the roof and fires its heatray at the auidence.  Richard Burton also appears in the show, although aided by some computer aided graphics. 

 At the end of the show, all the performers and Jeff Wayne got a standing ovation which we joined in with.  The show finished at 22:30 and we made our way out and back to the car.  Ther carpark was well organised and we were out and on our way home within 10mins.  It was a foggy journey home but a good time was had by all!!

447 451

Posted in Friends, General | No Comments »