November 2011 - The MX5 Story

At the end of September my lovely MX5 broke down. Twice before it had refused to start and by coincidence it was outside the same shopping centre near where we live.

In Manchester there is a huge shopping centre called the Trafford Centre and it became notorious for car owners being unable to disengage their car alarms and immobilisers after they had been parked there for a time. It turned out that the microwave alarm system at the Centre was interfering with the "blippers" and would not allow the signal to reach the controllers on the cars. I suspected the same failing so I had the garage remove my immobiliser, thinking it was faulty, and the car was returned to me seemingly OK to drive.

The next day it broke down again whilst I was driving it but I was lucky enough to be able to pull into a parking area before it finally gave up the ghost.

The garage worked on it some more, got it running again, and called me to collect it. This time it wouldn't start outside their premises. They told me after more investigation that their diagnostic machine reported a faulty wiring loom and the cost of this would be €800 plus labour. The total cost was to be a whopping €1200. Because they weren't Mazda specialists however they asked if they could take the car to the large Mazda garage in a nearby town for them to examine it as they did not want me to lay out all this money if they were wrong.

The Mazda engineers agreed with the original diagnosis but could not find a wiring loom anywhere. They did however charge me €200 for the privilege of them examining the car. I tried with my own contacts in England and after some searching they said that this part was not available in Europe.

I have a friend here in Spain who, whilst not a mechanic, used to work in a garage in England and he was most surprised at the suggestion of a new wiring loom as he had never heard of one being replaced except under extreme circumstances. So we had the dead car returned home and called upon the services of an Auto Electrician. We were now working on the principle that he could probably rebuild or repair the wiring if that indeed was the problem.

He also had never replaced a wiring loom apart from ones which had either burned out due to an engine fire, or on engines which had been left for so long that the wires had deteriorated and "rotted".

After examining the car for half an hour, getting it started, the engine running first on four cylinders, then on two, he narrowed the probable cause down to one of the coils even though the two garages who had previously had the car had dismissed this idea. I therefore ordered two brand new coils from MX5parts.co.uk and the electrician fitted them two weeks later when they arrived from the UK. The car started first time and has been OK since. His charge was a very reasonable €80 and the parts cost me €230.

The car had been off the road from the end of September until the Auto Electrician finally repaired it in late November. The entire brain power of two garages had been defeated due to lack of proper thought. Had they been able to get a wiring loom, I would have been €1200 poorer and the car would still have been unmoveable.

I think the motto is "Put not your trust in electronic diagnostic machines, think about it now and then".

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October 2011 - The U3A Gala Evening

Kathie and I returned from our extended holiday in the UK to find that we had both been invited to join the Committee of Torrevieja U3A.

In some ways we felt honoured as we had been members only for a year and in another way I was wondering how much involvement and time we would have to donate. The Chairman spoke to us both and I felt reassured when he said that full membership would not take place until the AGM in January 2012 so that gave us time to decide if it really was for us.

We therefore attended our first meeting in early October and were immediately welcomed into the group. It was an important time to join as preparations were being finalised for the 5th Anniversary Gala Evening towards the end of the month.

Things were a little hectic but we set-to and printed 250 Presentation Programmes for the big night. The dress code for the evening was "smart" but as none of my suits or jackets would currently fit me due to too much of the good life I was panicking a bit until a friend offered me a light coloured jacket which fit perfectly and was just right for the occasion.

Finally the evening arrived and togged out in our finest we travelled to the Palacio del Musica in the centre of Torrevieja where, as Committee Members, we were to help with the preparations, man the doors etc. before we could take our places in the auditorium.

Our Gala Guests included Lloyd Milen, the British Vice Consul in Alicante, Rosario Martínez Chazarra - Councillor for Foreigners, Inmaculada Montesinos Pérez - Councillor for the Third Age, and Graham Knight - Director of the Foreign Residents Office. Unfortunately the British Consul could not attend as his wife had unexpectedly been admitted to hospital in anticipation of an imminent birth.

The evening began with the promised Cava and Cake reception followed by a toast given by Lloyd wishing the U3A success and congratulating us on our fifth anniversary. Shortly after that we adjourned to the Theatre where our Chairman Bob Hill gave a speech of welcome to everybody before introducing Lloyd Milen, who gave an interesting and amusing address touching on what the Consular presence in Spain can do for us.

Rosario and Inmaculada then spoke for a short time about how Torrevieja welcomes all the different nationalities who have chosen to make their homes in this part of Spain.

After a short refreshment interval La Orquesta de Aspirantes (the young people of the Symphony Orchestra, still learning their craft) took to the stage and entertained us royally with a selection of popular classic numbers ranging from “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” to “Pirates of the Caribbean”.

Two of our committee members then gave a vote of thanks to the Vice Consul Lloyd Milen, the U3A Members for their continued support, our Chairman Bob Hill, the Ayuntamiento and Graham Knight, and the Conductor and Members of the Orchestra, before we had two rousing choruses of “Land of Hope and Glory” for which the Orchestra received a long standing-ovation. We were finally treated to an encore of “Pirates” and I think audience and orchestra were very happy with both performance and reception.

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September 2011 - Playing with digital photographs.

Ever since I discovered Paint Shop Pro as a free version on a cover-disk in the 80s I have manipulated photographs in order to enhance them. Sometimes it is removing people from backgrounds but can be taken to a high level and be used for removing scratches and marks from treasured photographs of relatives through to completely changing backgrounds in order to place people in a different environment.

Digital images on newer cameras may be altered quite easily and older printed photographs must be scanned before attempts at improvement may be made.

In my Computer Group (part of the Torrevieja U3A) we will be covering photo enhancement and this post is for demonstration purposes to show a few techniques.

1. Removing annoying or eye-catching backgrounds.

Click on any picture to view it full size.
Use the back-button to return

Here the image has been cropped, and the car and pavement rubbish has been removed. The groom has had two blemishes removed from his face.

2. Changing a background


In this photograph, the lovely couple standing by their flash car has been added to a picture from "Wind in the Willows". By no means perfect but an early experiment of mine.


Now the same lovely couple (somewhat older but just as lovely) have moved on to a swimming pool but the thin trees in the background allow a view through to the road and houses. Using "cloning" the trees have been spread to provide a more pleasing background and hide the cars etc.


My Great Niece, Grace, was photographed on holiday being given a bath in the kitchen sink in their caravan. I think removing her to a field of wild flowers makes a much more pleasing picture.

3. Repairing old and treasured photographs

Above is a badly damaged photograph of Sergeant Joseph Christie of the Eighth Army, taken circa 1942. Again not perfect but a vast improvement and a very acceptable enhanced image.

A friend of mine was doing his family tree and asked if I could improve this picture of his Grandfather. Mainly using cloning, the scratches, creases, and spots have been removed and left a very good new image. A photograph like this could take about three hours to improve to the extent shown above. The sepia tone has been kept to maintain the "age" of the photograph.

I hope to demonstrate these techniques in future weeks with my Computer Group.

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September 2011 - An act of trust from The Halifax (not).

I have been banking with The Halifax for about thirty years. I have had two mortgages from them and have never missed a payment. I have two Savings Accounts with them and have used them for my house and household insurance. Up to about two years ago they were happy enough to let me carry a Halifax Visa Card. My salary or pensions have been paid into my current account for quite some years.

Whilst checking my Santander credit card account during our recent holiday in England, I found that some kind person had been using it for online Poker Games. I can't say whether he won or not as only the payments were reflected in my account, and not any money he may have won. Santander sorted out the problem without fuss, credited the amounts and sent me a new credit card. Unfortunately this was sent to my Spanish address, leaving me without a card in the UK for petrol and other purchases.

Not to worry, I thought, the good old Halifax (motto: a little extra help) will sort me out; I will simply resume my old credit card with them.

Not so! It would appear that I am not rich enough to hold a card with the mighty Halifax. They did not tell me this of course but said my credit check, combined with their own knowledge of me, revealed that I am not worthy of them. They dutifully gave me the details of the credit check agency, both verbally and by mail, telling me several ways I could get hold of them.

So I did. My credit check was exemplary. The results showed that if I applied for credit in a situation where interest rates depended upon my credit rating, I would receive rates at the lower end of the scale.

So now I can only assume that The Halifax cast aside us poor pensioners so that we will not bring down their business again like their own boys in red braces did a couple of years ago.

During the course of my verbal application no questions were asked about my outgoings, amount of required credit on the card, or method of payment. They asked about my income but being but a poor pensioner this is pitifully low. They did not ask about joint income or other cash input which added together keeps us in meat (a couple of times a week) and other basic necessities. From this I infer that if I was earning a large salary but had huge debts and a massive mortgage a card would be mine. Their questions logically point to this.

Not to worry. Upon arrival at our home in Spain my Santander card was waiting for me so I can tell The Halifax that I no longer require their card and I will continue to use their rival.

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September 2011 - The road home!

The 1st of September saw us with a packed car (far too packed) reversing our trip of early July, and heading south for sunny Spain.

This is not a story of the complete trip as one 1500 mile journey through Europe is like another. I must mention however one or two points of note and interest.

The Queen Elizabeth Bridge, which takes M25 traffic clockwise over the Thames, is now so busy that the number of toll booths is completely inadequate at times of even medium traffic numbers. We crossed at about 2:00pm on a Thursday and it took us over 30 minutes from the bridge approach to exiting the automatic booth (about 2km).

The impressive but overcrowded QEII Bridge

It made us late for our Chunnel crossing but happily the operators are very flexible and simply put us on the next train.

We entered France and stopped at hotels in Calais and the Loire Valley then travelled down through the centre of the country towards the A75 Autoroute. This incredible motorway is free for its entire length (apart from the Millau Viaduct which is a toll bridge) and takes you from Clermont-Ferrand to Beziers near the Mediterranean coast, a distance of 340km. It travels straight through the Massif Central and I believe it to be the most scenic motorway in Europe. The views are incredible and it rises to 1121 metres at the Col des Issartets, much of the motorway runs at over 800m above sea level, and over 50km runs in excess of 1000m.

Le Puy de Dome

The volcanoes of The Auvergne

One can see the Puy de Dome, which is the highest of the extinct volcanoes in the Auvergne, and the views are so good that you have to take great care not to sightsee at the expense of safe driving. South of the Millau Viaduct the motorway drops sharply to Beziers through a series of tight switchback bends where the speed limit is reduced to only 80kph (50mph) for safety reasons.

The Viaduct itself is a wonderful sight as it crosses the Tarn Valley. Its statistics are massively impressive and may be viewed on many websites including Wikipedia so most are not repeated here. The highest pylon is 343m high, 19m higher than the Eiffel Tower, it is 2460m long, and cost €300million to build. It now costs €6.40 to cross it. It is such an attraction that it has its own Visitor Centre where you may view films of its construction and of course purchase souveniers from a fridge magnet to huge framed photographs.

It was a fine but dull time of day when we crossed so I have included one or two photographs from the Internet to decorate this article.

Please click on these pictures to view them full size

The beautiful British designed Millau Viaduct

Worthy of mention is the hotel in which we stayed the night before. Les 2 Rives is part of the Logis group and is a beautifully turned out hotel in Banassac, a tiny village of only 800 inhabitants. It has been completely modernized recently and each room has beautiful facilities, a king-sized bed, wi-fi, and TV. Our room overlooked the river and was very restful.

Hotel Les 2 Rives, at the side of an unnamed mountain stream

After Banassac we travelled down the A75, along the French southern coastal autoroute, into Spain, around Barcelona and stopped at Tarragona. This is a city with 2000 years of history but I only want to mention the area in which we spent the night. From Booking.com we reserved a room in the Hotel Lauria, situated on the Rambla Nova, and from the looks of the map, close to the beach.

The hotel location map

The hotel was quite old fashioned but the room was large, had a balcony overlooking the smallish pool, was air conditioned, and had the usual facilities. We took a walk from the hotel, along the Rambla towards the sea, then stopped dead at the view point. We were about 50m above sea level with a very steep road down, and two main roads and a railway line to cross before we could reach the beach.

View from the end of the Rambla Nova

Anybody in a wheelchair, or parents with buggies would find it very difficult to reach the sea if not impossible. Quite amusing for us staying only one night but a complete shock for anybody on holiday.

Finally fuel costs. Our little car runs on diesel. In the UK it is more expensive that petrol, on the Continent it is slightly cheaper than petrol. The prices we encountered (in euros for comparison purposes) were as follows:-
UK normal garage 1.53
UK Morrissons 1.47
UK motorway 1.60
France normal garage 1.39
France motorway 1.51
Spain normal garage 1.25
Spain motorway 1.29.

It felt like a long drive back from our new holiday home in the Yorkshire Dales, especially in the heat, and next year we will probably leave a month later, and take the western route down through France and cut the journey by a day.

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August 2011 - We seem to be going wrong somewhere

We recently paid a visit to our Goddaughters in Northwich and the younger of the two proudly showed off some of her schoolbooks. They revealed that she is buidling up a good level of general knowledge, is good at arithmetic, and her writing is good for a primary school child. She attends Comberbach Primary School in Cheshire.

Like all children she spells words phonetically and obviously some of them were not spelled correctly. What surprised me is that her teacher does not point out all her spelling mistakes as "it is not good for the child to have her spelling mistakes pointed out". Judging by the level of spelling observed elsewhere this would seem to be quite a common trait. Are kids so fragile these days that they are going to be marked for life if their mistakes are pointed out? If so I wonder why all us wrinklies are not wandering the world with twisted personalities because we had "spelling books" in which we wrote out the correct spelling of words we had previously spelled incorrectly.

The second thing which annoyed me in her school work was an exercise they called "Symmetry". In this exercise various shapes are displayed and the student has to indicate lines of symmetry. Part of this involved World Flags and lines were drawn on the flags to indicate where they were symmetrical. For example most vertical tricolours have one horizontal line of symmetry. Horizontal tricolours have one vertical line of symmetry.

Incredibly the teacher of these young people had told them (and drawn on their flags) that the flag of the United Kingdom has both a vertical and horizontal line of symmetry. I was taught by my primary school teacher the correct orientation of the Union Flag when I was 10 years old and it has stuck with me ever since. Our flag does not have reflection symmetry, due to the slight pinwheeling of St Patrick's cross, which is technically called the counterchange of saltires.

It annoys me intensely when I see a Union Flag hung upside down and have pointed it out on many an occasion, even once getting the manager of the Holiday Inn in Istanbul to lower and re-hang our flag when he had it inverted. Nobody would dream of hanging the USA Flag or that of Canada or Australia upside down (unless you were at sea and in distress) so why can't our young people be taught this simple item of loyalty and education. The most chauvinist and jingoistic feast of the year, the Last Night of the Proms, features patriots of all nations waving their flags but embarrassingly it is only ever the Brits who wave their flags upside down.

To fly the flag the correct way up, the broad portion of the white cross of St Andrew should be above the red band of St Patrick (and the thin white portion below) in the upper hoist canton (the corner at the top nearest to the flag-pole), giving the Scottish symbol precedence over the Irish symbol.



Rant over!!

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August 2011 - We meet the new relations.

Since last October there have been some new arrivals in our extended family and we met them all on the same day.

Grace

Grace came along in October 2010. She was born to Victoria and Gary. Victoria is my sister Helen's daughter. Sadly Helen died in 2004.

Alfred and Lee

Alfred made his arrival shortly afterwards in November and he is the son of Rowan and Lee. Lee is Kathie's brother David's son.

Eve and Jenni

Latest to join the clan is Eve who was born in August 2011 and is the daughter of Jenni and Tom. Jenni is Kathie's brother Paul's daughter.

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August 2011 - Pippa and Mike

The great day dawned (raining, but then it is August in England) and Pippa and Mike took the great step and were wed.




































The wedding went extremely well and afterwards we retired to the church hall next door to Mike's house for a "Cake and Cava" reception.

We hope that the new Mr and Mrs Christie will be as happy as we have been. Please check back in about 40 years!

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