A very Busy Day Indeed!

We were supposed to be heading home to Cornwall today, however, I have been arranging with an old friend who now lives between Salcombe and Kingsbridge, to meet up.

Unfortunately, as she runs a high end holiday let, and was expecting new guests this morning, she was not going to be free until this afternoon.

No problem! - whilst we were at the Tavistock site, we had asked the site manager to extend our stay at Slapton by one night. Sorted! we now go home on Sunday morning instead.... and to be honest, we are enjoying the break so much, the extra night is a wonderful bonus.

Anyway, moving on to the days antics..... during one of the evenings in the week, we had had a small shower of rain during the night, this in itself was not a problem, as it happened at night and left our days dry and warm. The problem arose when we discovered a small leak from the sky light, and had to make a whole new use for the saucepans!

We had heard this morning that the weather forecast for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday was full on rain, and so his morning was a good time for Paul to perform the repairs using a fibre glass kit he had bought in Dartmouth on our last trip there.

in order to be able to get to the damaged skylight the awning had to come down...

and then, using Mikes marvellous collapsing ladders, Paul got up to check out the damage

it seem that there were some cracks in the divots where the internal handles were fixed, so he cut some of the fibre glass to size

and placed them in position

once the gloopy stuff (that's technical you know!) was added, we began to feel a little more convinced that there would be no more leaks

Once the sky light was fixed, we then packed out picnics and headed over to Salcombe for a wander and to work out how far Judy was from where we were

stopping in a small secluded back street, we found a bench overlooking the lovely scene you can see above, and then ate out sandwiches and cakes, whilst watching the world go by

what a wonderful little village

having bought some posh cookies for Mel, who was looking after our veggies whilst we were away, we then headed off back towards Kingsbridge to find Judy's barn conversion

It was so lovely to see her again after so long, and she was wonderful, welcoming us with freshly home made scones, Devonshire clotted cream and freshly brewed tea - YUM!

The dogs enjoyed themselves in the huge garden, along with Judy's dogs, whilst we whiled away a pleasant hour or so chatting and catching up on gossip.

The barn conversion is totally incredible and has achieved a 5 rosette rating. Anyone wishing to stay in a totally idyllic location, would do well to contact Judy for info on it. Easton Court Barns is completely beautiful and having had the guided tour from Judy, along with Sally-Ann, we were enthralled at what they had achieved.

We finally left Judy in peace and headed back to the caravan park. It's a fish and chip supper tonight for tea so we are looking forward to it already LOL.

My 2nd Disaster of the Weekend...

As we were getting into the car to leave Birmingham, the wind caught the door on my side and slammed it too rather hard! Paul gave me a piece of his mind about being careful, and I told him as I was not touching the door at the time it was a case of forces-majeur, and act of nature so to speak!

Before we had even gotten to the end of the road, there was a big clatter and the window on my side started to slide down - great! that means the internal gubbings of the window had just broken and we would have to drive 350 miles with the window down!

We stopped off in the local cutting for the newsagents and Paul shoved a load of cardboard into the window frame between the rubber and the glass to hold it in place, and hopefully get us to Cornwall before it gave up the ghost again.

The journey south went uneventfully, and just as we crossed into the Cornish boarders the seal started to come apart from the glass and a small draft crept in..... I kept quiet for fear of the wrath of the Husband! Not only had I damaged the Laptop on Saturday night, but now I had damaged the car as well, less than 12 hours later!

After arriving home and fixing the laptop, which you will already have read about, he set about pulling apart the car door to access the window gubbings (yep that's the technical term according to the brain of Jo!)

He then jammed the window into place with a piece of 2x4 wood to keep it secure until he could get to the dealer today (Monday) to buy the replacement bit

Upon getting home from work, having collected the replacement part from Renault, he started to refit the new bit to the window works



The little green plastic thingy on the left of the gubbings is the offending broken item!

Paul fixed it into position and then started to attach everything back onto the car door frame once more

I think it was more fiddly to take the panelling off and put it back on, than it was to fix the broken part!

but slowly it began to go back into place

just the door arm now......

and finally, it all went back together

and we had a working electric window once more.....

PHEW! - Good job I wasn't near anything else I could break eh!

I'm A Walking Disaster!

Whilst in Brum, we helped Mom to sort her laptop out and speed it up by transferring everything to an external hard drive - in doing so, I was a little clumsy with my own lap top and once again managed to damage it much to Paul's disgust with me!

I placed it onto the floor, and unwittingly allowed Fred to run across the keys in his excitement to get to a dentistix in my hand - the result was the breaking off of the D and E key pads, as you can see above!

Once we arrived home, Paul went onto You Tube to see if there was anything on there on how to fix them back on. It transpires that there were a few really helpful videos, and it could be fixed, but we would need the parts..... Ah Ha! what about the last lap top I destroyed says I - after all I never throw anything away LOL

and so, my little old Acer came out of hiding at the back of the cupboard, and some keys were popped off to see if the fixing underneath was the same as the one we needed - Bingo! They were the right ones.... Off came the first ....

and placed onto the current laptop keypad, still following the instruction on the screen from You Tube!

Once it was in place, it was a matter of hooking the key pad back on top and clicking it down into place....

then off came the next key from the old machine and the process was repeated again with the E key

It was very fiddly and there was just not enough light to see what we were doing, but it all just came together......

and Voila! a fully working keyboard again, all thanks to the wonders of the internet and a little lateral thinking in relation to the spare parts needed!

Well done Paul, and thanks for fixing my lifeline, LOL