Car Clutch Temporary Fix

One of Carol's students at the Academy has a father who is a car mechanic. She mentioned to the child that our car needs the clutch repairing, so she obtained his mobile telephone number and she rang him when she got home from work yesterday evening. Around half an hour later he turned up on the doorstep, just as we were making our evening meal. He looked at the car and has done a temporary repair to the clutch cable. He has given us a far cheaper quotation for the work and tells us that it just needs a new cable which shouldn't cost anywhere near as much as the first mechanic who came out the other evening. He told us we could drive the car but advised us not to go too far. He should ring me today to give me more details of prices for parts and labour to do the job, which can't be done until next week when we are paid. I did think there might be a problem with this before it eventually went a few weeks ago when we went to shop at Morrison's at Westcroft. I did think that the clutch was likely to go as there seemed to be far too much 'play' when you put your foot on the clutch pedal.

It has been raining hard over-night. I could hear it distinctly when I had to get up in the night. Alfie insisted on going outside and came back soaked to the skin. When he gets wet his coat goes very curly and crinkly, almost as if he has been permed or had hair rollers put in. He is still obsessed by the cats who come in from next door and sit on either the fence on the shed roof. It seems that Yorkshire Terrier behaviour is to sit and stare for a long time at something or other, which is what he did when we lived at the other house in Crownhill and we had an invasion of rats. He managed to kill one early one morning, managing to corner it in the kitchen and eventually catching it and shaking it until it died. The noise was horrible but it was amazing that such a small dog could manage to kill something which was considerably bigger than himself. Just goes to show what a strong-willed little dog he is. Small in stature but bold and brave by nature. I can see now how they came to be used in Yorkshire cotton mills to keep the rats and mice down. Their persistence and perseverance is one of their very strong characteristics. He plays with his toys a lot and has this habit of shaking them, very much how he shook that rat until it died. He loves the Comic Relief ball, which is a red, soft ball made of red material with a face on it, which, when you hit it or drop it hard makes a laughing sound which has the effect of making Alfie howl along with it. He throws his head back and makes the most amazing howling sound. I have never had a dog which does this. He seems to know how to set it off and can 'throw' this ball which starts the laughing sound. If he wants this ball, and he knows very well where it lives on the bookshelf, he will stare at it and then at me and this is to tell me he wants to play with it.

If you scroll down you will see a YouTube video of Alfie playing with the Comic Relief ball and somewhere on that he is playing with the 'dinosaur' ball which makes growling sounds. He gets carried away with that and throws it about on the sofa!