Venus

With the excitment about the current Mars pictures, here's an excellent site!, with digitally reprocessed pictures from the Soviet Venera landers.

Rather cool too.

Piss Fart Bugger and Bum...

Took the car into the garage today. On the road yesterday I could have mistaken it for a traction engine, needing 3 litres of water on a 120 mile round trip. Ho hum, this isn't good.

I was harbouring a faint hope that it might just be the cooling fan and/or expansion pressure cap in the filler reservoir. This was being supported by the lack of water evidence in the oil.

However, I phone the garage and the mechanic was blunt. "I have't finished yet, but I'm pretty sure its the cylinder head gasket."

Feck.

It bugs me. So he's quoted £350, which isn't all that bad - certainly beats me having to try and do it. I'll bodge many things, but previous bad experience of hauling cylinder heads off older more resilient cars has taught me that its not my strong point. I'll take comfort in the thought that its still half what the main dealer would charge - (checks, yeap, exactly half what the main dealer charges).

Oh well - I'll need to hire a car for the weekend for my Mum's birthday and tomorrow's trip to London will have to be by train.