Day Twenty-Five

The new normal plays out while the world turns, the sun comes up each day, and our daily routine continues.

The 25th day of our self isolation started with toast and coffee, a few hours of gaming and internet, lunch of fresh bread and cheese followed by pottering around in the garden and garage. It was then essential to visit the local brewery for twenty-four bottles of beer, pale ale, red ale and IPA.

Sooke Ocean Side Brewery, thank you for your efforts to support the likes of us!

The afternoon walk was taken on a section of the Galloping Goose, past the stables with big, and little, horses and over the highway for the coastal walk. I took a different camera with me, mainly to take a couple of pictures in the bay of the old Lamford Forest products site.

The navy ship is HMCS Cowichan, a Bay class minesweeper 1957 - 1997 now privately owned.

Year Eighteen

It is day twelve of the lockdown and we spent the day gardening, pottering about, washing the car and walking. It's time for happy hour and beers are being applied as adequate "self medication" in these odd times.

It was March 21st, 2003 when Karen picked up her new Acura RSX, and it is still with us as it enters it's eighteenth year, still looking good and driving great.

It has been a most reliable car.

Roche Cove regional Park

A few more photos from yesterday.

Eleven

A world gone barking mad.

Day Ten - Tea Brake

The man versus car tournament continued today, I woke up this morning looking forward to the next challenge, the front brakes. It's been about a month or so with a very slight squeak coming from somewhere, at first I brushed it off as being other cars, but then after a while I concluded that 115000 kilometres was probably a good moment to inspect, and replace, the front brake pads.

I have to comment that I don't particularly use brakes a lot, which is why these seventeen year old pads have lasted so well. It was last summer, on a thirty kilometre drive back from Victoria, I noted I hardly touched the brakes at all. I expect that my style of driving over the years has resulted in the original set of pads lasting so long.

After some research I decided on ceramic disk pads from Wagner and my preference was for pads with a separate, shouldered shim as opposed to a bonded shim. I ordered them from Amazon for grand total of C$40.10 including taxes and shipping, they took three days to arrive.

The job took a couple of hours, which included an odd half hour at the start with the camber of my driveway working against me actually jacking the bloody car up correctly in the first place. I also used the job as an opportunity to rotate the tires front to back so I was using a secondary jack. This second set of tires have about 45000 kilometres wear now, so I hope by rotating them I'll squeeze another few years life out of them.

Featured above, Vintage Canadian Tire trolley jack and fixed stands from the early 1990's. It was two thirds of the way through the job and the back passenger side tire had been rotated and I knew the finish line was in sight, so a cup of tea was deserved.

The two 12mm bolts were loosened on the caliper.

The piston was cleaned and lightly greased and cycled using the old brake pad and a four inch clamp. I found that my resolve and strength were beginning to flag at this point as I was approaching the two hour point, however, I was about ten minutes away from completion and I found some enthusiasm to get the job done in a methodical fashion. 

Canadian Tire clamp from a set, door crasher from the mid 1990's.

As I drank my cup of tea, had a biscuit, I was transported back in my mind to the times in the 1970's when my dad would be working, in the driveway, on his Austin Taxi for the bi-annual test. I would take him, and his good buddy, Freddy, a cup of tea so they could have a break from the hard work, usually involving the front brakes and the king pins.

It is difficult to convey how happy doing stuff like this makes me, as I was working on the car, Karen was working in the garden, transplanting shrubs here and there for the new season, but she took some time out of her activities to put the kettle on.

She is a lovely lady and she makes a wicked cup of tea.

Day Nine - A bridge too far.

The walk of choice today, one of the few left that has not been highlighted as a social collection area, was on a four kilometre stretch of the Galloping Goose, up by the trestles, one of which is not accessible at the moment as it is being repaired, we thought we'd take a nice stroll on a slightly damp day, to see if anything was happening up there.

First bridge, the healthy Charters River Trestle.

Rain, rock and moss. A beautiful sight on a quiet, serene walk.

Karen and myself, ignoring social distancing rules. She loves that hat, and I love her.

The bridge too far, the Todd Creek Trestle, which should be repaired later this year.

Day Six - Man versus Headlights

I decided to (finally) address my frosty headlights, as usual, did a little research, paid twelve bucks for the compound and assembled the necessary tools...

Meguiar's Ultimate Compound, an old sponge, a piece of old pajamas.

The headlight before the process :

A quick wash with soapy water, then two or three passes with the compound, applied in a circular pattern with the sponge, a little bit of pressure.

It was ten, or fifteen minutes of circular polishing with the compound, then a couple of washes with plain warm water.

I was very pleased with the results, after less than an hour for both headlights they seemed as good as new. I had used about a third of the compound, so total cost around four dollars.

Job done.