and today i have mostly been...

[Doggy]

Ah, I see.

All sounds a bit confusing to me.

I can't imagine what the loops doing?

Maybe you can't hearing it buzzing because the frequency's outside the audible spectrum......


In a previous life I worked with vhf welding m/cs that welded the seam on steel tubes, (the frequency was so high the only way current could flow was across the gap), maybe it's something like that?

Guess it could be electrostatic, rather than electromagnetic, who knows?




Didn't they pioneer this kinda thing in your part of the world?

[steve_earwig]

Nah, it's a bit too far south for that here.

Here it's a bit more


Or perhaps even
LVDmjnCQ1g4

[steve_earwig]

Another swift one:
I've finished my electrotherapy for now, it was 10 times and now I need to go back to the physioterrorist (the one that reckons I'm wasting his time & should be having surgery ) Of course I'll need another referral and try and squeeze in his appointments list (which is probably fully booked until the middle of December by now)

Meanwhile... Seeing as how it was two all between surgery and not surgery, we got in contact with the private physio again (the one that made me scream a very rude word). She's off on maternity leave now but agreed to have a squint at my paperwork via email. She doesn't think I need surgery (hooray!) but she did say it will take months to sort itself out. She's told me to cut down on the tramadol and recommended me some vitamins that I'll need to get a prescription for. So it's back to see nurse "I do wish all these annoying patients would f!ck off" and Dr. "I'll turn up for work when I'm good and ready" tomorrow afternoon.

The degaussing loop does "work", I conveyed my suspicions to one of the nurses and she gave me a magnet, hold that near the machine and you can feel it vibrating.

[Doggy]

It's hard to tell from the sidelines, but I sincerely hope you're getting somewhere at last.

Never been that bad myself, but I've had a few days of being barely able to move. Feel for you buddy.

[steve_earwig]

Cheers bud, although I only have myself to blame - if only I hadn't let myself get so unfit, if only I'd listened to my back - it was hurting before I helped move the garage but I had kind of promised. Then all it took was a couple of unfortunate events and boom! it's cripple time again

I'm just trying to sort out some swimming, the nearest pool is 43km away though, and that's on a toll road

[steve_earwig]

of course I'll need another referral and try and squeeze in his appointments list (which is probably fully booked until the middle of December by now)

Not quite - the nurse found a spot in her book and started writing the date on my card - it started 28 and I was thinking "that's this Friday!" but then finished with 11 - a month away.

Btw we're calling this nurse "Nurse Bipolar" - sometimes she's really friendly and asks how I am, other times she seems like she's in the worst mood ever and could I f"ck off now?

So it's back to see nurse "I do wish all these annoying patients would f!ck off" and Dr. "I'll turn up for work when I'm good and ready" tomorrow afternoon.

We left my medical cards and a note for them this morning and got there an hour after they started this afternoon. After waiting half an hour we realised there were loads of us just waiting for 'scripts and referrals so my wife knocked on the nurses door & went in without giving her a chance to say no and there they were, a big stack on her desk. They'd already done them but hadn't thought to tell anyone She'd only give me a private 'script for the vitamins so I had to pay for the things. I can't wait for my usual doc to come back next month

[steve_earwig]

The nightmare continues... Hopefully this afternoon I'll be investigating the swimming pool, I'm a bit nervous to be honest. Not because I think I'm going to drown (blessed relief!) but because it's a fair old way in my present state (I'm ok to drive the 10 minutes to the shops & back now but I'm not keen to push it) and what if I aggravate my back at the pool? If I'm back to not being able to get in the car we could end up marooned

So, once more my wife's inability/unwillingness to drive is proving to be a damned nuisance. She has a driving licence (possibly got it out of a Christmas cracker, as I think many other people here did judging by the state of the driving) but has never actually driven much, and that 30 years ago. I tried to get her driving in the D8 but she said it was too big ( ) so we kind of gave up on that one.

When I again broached the subject she started prattling on about a 4x4 someone gave her a lift in, a Suzuki she reckons, although she's not sure which and can't remember who it was. She reckons it would be much easier to drive if she's high up and has a better idea where the ends of the car are and I'm thinking it would be easier to get in & out of with my back. I mentioned it to my dad, he said it seemed like a good idea so, ok, I start checking out old Vitaras. The problem is anything at all four-wheel-drive here costs a premium, so I'm looking at 3k€ upwards for something made around 20 years ago I found one for sale: 1990, 1.6, 6 month's registration & insurance, new exhaust, tyres, etc. etc. but unfortunately a long way off. I was just about to dispatch the wife with the mechanic to look at it when I got a phone call from my brother and it seems they'd discussed it and reckoned that a car that old probably wouldn't be safe and now I've been offered the cash to buy something newer

What though? I reckon go for petrol as it'll only be doing town stuff and I'm sure you know how much modern diesels like that sort of thing I also have a much smaller market to look at so it'll be a little bit of Hobson's choice.

My wife said she liked my dad's old flealander (TD4 with the troublesome Jatco auto 'box) that we drove in GB a few years back. Check out what goes wrong with them, then try to find something that doesn't go wrong with them, then ask my mate in the car spares shop and give up when he starts laughing.

Honda CRV? So, when the air con pump explodes just how much damage does it do to the engine? Fook dat!

Hi und die Santa Fe - very expensive spares, The Blob styling.

Grand Vitara - how much?!! I could buy a new one for that!!!

Nissan Entrail - I had a Nissan 4x4 before, it was crap. Expensive spares again.

Rav-4 - expensive tyres ok (I guess none of these type of car has cheap tyres). The only real problem seems to be the insurance group, which is not the same here: it's calculated using the original list price and the power output and at 150bhp it'll make things quite a bit more expensive than the 406 but if it gets my wife driving then perhaps I can then get her to drive something a little more sane. Or I could go for a 1.8 but they're two wheel drive and what the f!ck would be the point of that?

There are two of these for sale in this area:
http://www.njuskalo.hr/auti/toyota-rav4 ... as-3616628
http://www.autoglobal.hr/auto-oglas-det ... Rav-4.html

Both closer than the swimming pool anyway...

Oh, and last night I was talking to my brother and I got the distinct impression that, once my wife is driving her giant hot wheels truck, I'll then be expected to sell my 406 - body dead my over

[Doggy]

Get some bigger wheels & invent the 406 crossover?

[steve_earwig]

That might involve having to completely redesign the suspension...

[steve_earwig]

I've been swimming! It's an Olympic-size pool but divided into widths by those floaty things. So as not to overdo it I was only in for 25 minutes, did about 20 widths and suffered very little pain

Unfortunately it ended up as the most expensive swim ever - we went on the toll road and when I got to the entrance the barrier just let me through "I didn't realise they were free on Sundays now " I thought. I got to the other end and was fined 50 quid for not having a ticket. Bastards.

[steve_earwig]

I had a chat with my bro earlier on Skype. That's to say my brother had a chat, I was asleep (what else can I do?) so I woke up to find it - a voyage of discovery as he went from finding LHD cars for me to import, then discovering that I can't import anything that left the production line more than 7 years ago (and that's a good 7 years as it can take months) and finally discovering how much they charge in addition to the tax and the amount of expensive pointless bureaucracy I'd have to wade through.

I was sure I'd told him all this but

He also found this http://www.escapefromamerica.com/2009/0 ... g-croatia/ which is quite interesting if a little long. Bear in mind that it's all gone up now, the Croatian government are still mad keen on joining the European Onion (and given the state of the EU economies right now this a bit like being mad keen on getting on board an obviously sinking ship) and have a policy of "harmonisation" which seems to involve adopting some of the more stupid European laws (we have 2 dustbins now!) and obviously includes f*cking your own economy up to suit by going ape with the taxes

[Welly]

We had a Rav4 2.0 petrol Auto at work, it was a 2002 and suffered auto-gearbox trouble (an ECU glitch) this problem affected all 2001 to 2003?? cars. Well worth researching if you're looking for an Auto as it costs about £1K to sort out by the time you've had the ECU, new set of keys etc etc.......

Other than that the Ravvy is a safe bet, in petrol form. You're bang on though about the ease of getting in/out and I think you should consider trading the the 406 up for something like this. You need a motor that suits everything, including her indoors, especially if she can share the driving more.

I have an 'iffy' back and sometimes climbing in/out of the Volvo is a PITA, I'd love to have something you can 'slide' into easily, plus being a bit higher-up is a bonus.

I was told to avoid swimming as it makes you arch/twist your back

[steve_earwig]

I think that depends on your stroke. U dunno, the private physio said it was a good idea but perhaps she's looking for more business...

Cheers for the advice on the RAV, I've got a print out from Honest Johan with that sort of stuff but there's nowt like trying it on for size - yep, my arse slides on in there with no trouble

We've just been to see a 2000 2.0vvvvvvvttti - this one in fact http://www.njuskalo.hr/auti/toyota-rav4 ... as-3616628

I took my mate from the car spares & service place with us because I reckon nothing says "suckers" more than a guy who doesn't speak much of the lingo and (worse still) a woman! Mind you, he did tell me to stop laughing at one point - this is serious business

So yes,2000 Toy otter RAV-4, 2.0VTITV, 180kkm, owned by some sort of builders firm. It was an honest car, by that I mean it openly confessed to being a pile of crap, right down to the rattly cam belt idlers, at the end of the travel clutch, the foggy headlamps, the scored disks and the body damage and wheels that had been brush painted with... HAMMERITE But that was it, as far as I could see it had never had any panel sprayed and had stone chips a-plenty (some also splodged in with the aforementioned paint product) that testified to the full 180,000km.

Still, it was mission accomplished as the wife fits in one ok, doesn't think it's too big or anything, and she was driving it up and down the yard accompanied by the crashing of gears

NEEEEXT!

On the way to see the next car we spotted a nissan entrail at a dealer's so we popped in. It was one of the later ones with all the spotlights in every conceivable place including the roof rails. 2.5 petrol, automatic (imagine the fuel consumption!) 2009, 20,000€. Er, ok, thankyouverymuchgoodbye. We sat the wife in it anyway but it was declared "too big", so that's the end of them.

As we left the price dropped to 18,000...

Next up was a Hi and die Satan Fe at my favourite Pug dealers - this one http://www.njuskalo.hr/auti/hyundai-san ... as-3521577 Even amongst all the wide-mouthed frog Peugeots it was still amazingly ugly. And also too big

It's looking like RAV-4 or bust now. At least we know the wife can drive one, so we don't actually need her with us next time.

I think you should consider trading the the 406 up for something like this

NOOOOOOOOOOO! Say it isn't so!! I think I'd be offered a derisory amount of money if I tried to chop it in for something, and I'd loose the bargaining power of ready cash. I was hoping to keep it this winter, if the wife gets used to driving her monster truck she might be able to drive something more sensible in the spring. Failing that, coat of paint on the back bumper, fresh ticket & stick it up for something mad like 9,500€ and see if anyone bites. It'd be a sad day but hey, it won't last forever.

[Doggy]

Couldn't you try a 99/2000 Jeep Cherryoke, (fairly small, nice height for access / egress) + the 2.5 diesel will do 30mpg on a veg oil-fuelled run.....

[steve_earwig]

I sat on one of those a couple of times, they're like an inverse TARDIS - huge on the outside, tiny on the inside. I think if an Inssane Exhale is too big then one of those definitely is...

Edit: http://www.njuskalo.hr/auti/jeep-cherok ... as-3058252