Norman Ralph

The Christmas festivities are over, the New Year hangovers have subsided and 2008 is nearly a week old. This seems like the perfect opportunity to take a look back at 2007 and the people, events and ideas that made it.

Christmas and New Year are always a time for reflection and nostalgia and this year was no different. My family was all together for the first time in a while, including some of the new additions. I had an enjoyable time with several highlights – firstly, I caught up with some old friends and relived some of those moments from my youth that I miss. I also had a good time Christmas Day as I actually felt part of the family for the first time in many years. The end of December was also a good time for me, I spent it with Liz and her family and really felt accepted.

Anyway, back to my review of the year.

January
January was an interesting month, fisrt it saw the blossoming of a new friendship, one that would lead to something quite special – although i didn’t know that at the time of course. This month saw the final plans for the new academic year’s housing plans and all the arguments that surrounded that decision. This is probably the time that I cemented my friendship with a number of people whom I now consider my closest allies.

January’s exam period was hard for me, not just for the obvious reasons, but because it saw the dawning in my mind that I had lost my passion in Materials Engineering, that the course was no longer the inspiration I required. I began to toy with the idea of leaving university, or at least changing course.

February
I don’t remember much of February apart from starting at McDonald’s and buying a new car. I also went to Langdale in the Lake District with my mum.

March
March was an interesting month, I saw Barenaked Ladies in concert in Leeds which was amazing, visited Sarann in the Lakes and most importantly I started this blog.

April
Now here is the definition of a rollercoaster ride. I reached some of the lowest points of my life but also touched some of the highest highs. I ran Rationalist Week, spent a week in a self-destructive spiral of drinking, partying and depression, I met a girl and fell in love.

May
May was a busy month. Liz and my relationship went from strength to strength, went to see Soweto Kinch and The Who live in concert and Blackpool won in the League One play-offs and got themselves promoted to the Championship.

June
Festivals were the order of the day/month for June. I went to Sunrise and Farmyard Party to work in a chip van with Sarann. I had a great time but it meant not seeing Liz for a lot of the month – the first real test for our relationship. I think we ended up stronger than ever! Chris ended up in hospital with a serious bout of appendicitis and I spent a lot of time helping Matt sort out his car.

July
July was quite boring compared to the surrounding months.I went to Workhouse in Wales, had minor computing issues and moved in with my new housemates – Sarann, Michelle, B and Chris.

August
Always a quiet month, with uni still a month away and the excitement of breaking up long since faded away. I spent most of the month taking stock and seeing what was what in my life. I did go to Solfest, however, which was definitely a personal highlight of the year!

September
I made only seven blog posts in September, which gives a good indication of how little I did. I did start a new course at university though and turned twenty-three – which also explains the lack of blogging! The combination of Fresher’s week and birthday celebrations will do that to a man.

October
A difficult month for me. A lot of things happened in my private life that left me somewhat adrift. I did get a new computer though, which is always nice!

November
November saw things pick up a bit with the A-Soc London trip, Atheist Week and the discovery of the Lancashire Hotpots! London was worth all the effort that I put into it, it turned out better than anyone had predicted and nothing really bad happened. Liz and I went from strength to strength and I even managed to find time to do some uni work!

December
A month of WoW and family. Not a lot to report on really, except what is already included at the top of this post. It was a good festive period all in all. I think it set me up for 2008 quite nicely.

My car has been in the garage since Monday, it is now Thursday. Usually, this would not be a problem but this is not a major job! This should not be taking a week! I needed my thermostat replacing, the coolant filling up and a new bracket to be fixed to the underside of my coolant housing due to old one rusting off! Gordon, the mechanic, fixed the thermostat and put a temporary bracket on for me whilst he orderd a replacement bracket from a parts supplier. This part was supposed to be delivered and fitted this morning. Instead, I receive a telephone call from Gordon asking if I would drive to Thornton and pick up the part myself and drop both the car and part back to him tomorrow morning. This basically means that I won’t even be able to think about heading back to Leeds until Friday!!

It is ridiculous!

Yesterday saw my car’s first break down since I bought it. I had just left the petrol station in Greenhalgh when I noticed my temperature light was flashing, I pulled over as soon as was safe and was somewhat shocked by the quantity of steam pouring from under my bonnet. On closer inspection I found that the coolant filler bottle was leaking under pressure and that was the source of the steam. I decided that this needed professional attention, so slowly made my way home (a journey that normally would take ten minutes or so under normal circumstances, but it took over 30 mins this time). I am still waiting to hear back from my mum’s mechanic, so I still don’t know exactly what is wrong or how much it is going to cost me.

It is just my luck that this would happen at home in Kirkham so I can’t get back to Leeds until it is fixed, which also means that Liz can’t get home either and she has to be at work on Monday! It also means I am without transport in the rural Fylde for the first time since I passed my test. It is horrible to have to be so reliant on my mother for getting around, especially when your girlfriend is visiting!

Well, what a week!

This week has been one of the most eventful, stressful, tiring and generally worrying week in a long, long time. Having returned from Farmyard Party on Sunday, I took Monday to recover. Well that was the plan anyway. Izzy wanted feeding, so I headed round to make some dinner – a lovely chilli and soy stir fry creation – and then decided we would venture to the pub for a swift drink. Mondays in Leeds offers a massive variety of drinking choices to the student. There is Bondi’s £10 ‘all you can drink” night of cheese and tunes; the Fruit Cupboard on Call Lane offers 80p entry and 80p a drink to their ’80s, ’90s and now evening; then there is the Library, which offers its ‘Quids In’ night – all drinks from £1. Izzy and I decided on the latter, mainly due to its locale, the group texts were sent and replies received. Sarann offered us pre-drinks at Graham’s so off we trotted.

Now, I have never been to Graham’s house before but having spent quite a bit of time with the lad recently I was quite intrigued as to what I would find. I wasn’t disappointed! I got there to discover endless supplies of Jack Frost’s white cider (3 litre bottles at 7.5%), a Nintendo Wii, a widescreen television, loud drum ‘n’ bass and to top it all I had arrived mid way through ‘pants and cape day’ – a day that was celebrated by the residents of the house sitting around in pants and capes! We stayed for a swift cider then headed down to thre Library.

To our horror and disgust we found that the Library only does its pound a pint night during term time! So after a relatively expensive drink we headed back to Graham’s, where we wiled the night away with a few beers, pizza and Nintendo Wii. About 2am we decided we were all partied out so tried to leave. It turned out that all the sets of keys to Graham’s house were not actually in the house and the doors were locked. Which meant we were locked in! We sat and waited for the keys to arrive back home, but by 3am we were getting a little impatient. By 3.15 we had decided to break out by clambering through a ground floor window. Which was a mission! It was made all the more difficult by the fact that Michelle was fairly drunk. I say fairly drunk, she was wasted!

Tuesday was a fairly quiet night, spent some time on the telephone to Liz, watched Meet Joe Black and did some chores.

Wednesday saw me finish tidying my room in readiness for Liz’s arrival from Lincoln when I got a call from Bryony. Chris had had to be rushed into hospital and would I give her a lift to LGI as her car park ticket had run out? I spent the rest of the early afternoon sat with Chris in the assessment ward at the Leeds General Infirmary, he has suspected appendicitis and lookd very ill with a fever and severe abdominal pain. Well I knew it was severe because Chris winced…twice! The doctors didn’t realise that this was a sign that he was in agony. I fetched Chris’s mum from the train station and then picked Liz up. Michelle offered dinner as it was her last chance before she moved out of halls. After a delicious meal of homecooked lasagne and bread and butter cuisine I went to pick B up from the hospital.

I was awake most of the night as I was quite concerned about Chris – I had learned the results of his blood work and was dismayed to find that not only was the appendicitis confirmed but they suspected that it had burst several days earlier!! B text me at 2.10am to let me know that Chris had come out of surgery and that the prognosis was good.

Thursday was a hard hard day. I spent the morning helping Michelle pack and move stuff from her halls. Took longer than I expected, but B came round to help (more to take her mind of Chris I suspect). I got home at lunchtime to feed Liz and spend some time with her before running off again to take Matt to see cars. However, I sat down on the end of my bed and next I knew it was gone 5pm! I was not feeling well at all, stressed out, headache and general apathy!

I ended up at the pub in the evening, but wasn’t really feeling it at all. I don’t think I was that good company, but everyone seemed to have a fairly chilled evening.

Today is another busy day. Went to see my GP at 9.40 this morning, got referred to the hospital – which is nice…. Si has just been round to drop some stuff off prior to him taking up residence in Michelle’s room over the summer. Just waiting for the girls to finish tidying so I can move his stuff downstairs. I also have to unpack my car of Michelle’s stuff, move it downstairs and then go back to move her out to Sarann’s. I hate this time of year! I truly do.

Matt owns a Renault Clio and it recently failed an MOT test on a number of points. On getting a quote for the work required he figured it would be cheaper and easier to do a lot of the repairs himself. Knowing I had had some experience working on cars, well Land Rovers, he gave me a call to see if I would give him a hand doing some of the more complicated work such as brakes etc. I agreed.

It has been a few years since I had last worked on a Land Rover, I had sold mine in February 2005, Steve’s has been off the road up in Bulmer for a couple of years now and Jon’s hasn’t had that much work done to it since either. I had helped Jon do a bit of breaking on his spare LWB job, but that’s not exactly mechanic’s work. I was realy looking forward to getting back into the swing of things, the excitement of taking something that doesn’t work and making it run again. I couldn’t wait.

Monday saw me take my first look at what we had to do. The list of work seemed fairly small on fist appraisal, but on closer inspection we realised it would be quite a task.

Work required:

Remove failed starter motor.
Fit new starter motor and test.
Remove defective brake discs and pads.
Fit replacement discs and pads.
Remove defective brake drums and shoes.
Fit replacemetn drums and shoes.
Untwist brake hoses.
Locate and fix electrical problem in front indicater.
Visual inspection of vehicle for MOT.

Armed with a fairly decent tool kit, the trusty Hayne’s manual and a glorious afternoon we set about the task. Now, as any amateur mechanic will know nothing ever goes to plan so by 10.30pm we had removed the atrter motor and semi-replaced it with the new one. We had removed one of the front wheels and removed the brake pads and that was about it. We had had to run out in the middle of the job to get a new socket for the front brake caliper retaining bolts and a tub of high temperature copper grease for the rear drums. Matt and I had also ended up covered in oil from head to toe and both wearing filthy clothes.

I have never had so much fun!