The students are revolting.

With management going on a degree course in social work coming from a family that has at times been highly critical of the profession it was sort of inevitable that at some stage things might turn a bit lively.

I had not though expected festivities to commence on day three in college. There appears to have been a debate about the personalisation agenda, something about which we both have pretty strong views. Throw in service user involvement   and you are in some pretty controversial territory, well so it seems. 

Sounds like she had a really lively time in her seminar, and she came home talking about marketisation making social work a commercial activity Gramsci and Hegemony.  She is turning into an academic at a speed that is, quite frankly, bewildering.

In contrast, I am not, last week the 806 expired in a ball of smoke and steam. The head gasket was suspected - I wish.... I am fairly careful on such matters as oil and water, though of course on the 806 the oil is checked automatically every time you start the engine and a little pointer tells you if you need to add oil.

A few weeks back I had to put a litre of oil in it which was unusual but since then it has showed it is full every time the engine starts.

I suspect a few of you are now way ahead of me.

But anyway what appears to have happened is that there was oil starvation, the camshaft seized in the head which will have lead to lots of mechanical bits saying hello to lots of other mechanical bits and to describe the cambelt as shredded is not really getting close to a description. Basically, the inside of the engine is going to be like a war zone.

I learnt this as I was sitting in the passenger seat of the AX as Branwen drove to college.

Now, the 806 with a dead engine was going to be worth about 100 pounds no more.

The 806 running was going to be worth 500 pounds. Add an MOT and you would stick a one in front of that.,

So everything hung on whether an engine could be found.  The answer to that was yes. The local breaker had just taken the engine out of a late and low mileage 306 that had got all intimate with the hedge as it's owner drove it home from the pub.

The 306 is a far smaller car but it does use the same engine. 100 pounds was a really good price and so off to the cashpoint and then back to the yard.

Now an XUD diesel engine is lots of things, light isn't one of them.  It took 3 of us to get it into the back of the little AX, I would hazard a guess that it weighs the best part of 150 kg in a car that probably weighs about 500 kg all up. .

To say this had an effect on how the little AX handled is also a understatement, especially as we could not quite get the engine into the car so that all the weight  was, in effect, behind the rear axle.

The drive home was "interesting" fortunately the weight had killed most of the performance and, having the engine so near to the back of the car, when it started leaking oil it did so on to the road not the carpet.

The thought that in an emergency stop in which I would probably have a bloody heavy engine coming to join me in the front also conspired to introduce an element of caution into my driving style  already made cautious by the anti handling kit next to the tailgate.

The engine was soon delivered to the garage and unloading was far easier as it was going on the floor and that was in the down direction, down rendered less damaging by the use of tyres as padding.

Then it was off home to see how much housework the two teenies had done - exactly none. They had sat there looking at the washing up expecting perhaps their gaze to shame it into cleaning  itself.

Now the evening is upon us, the student is home and she seems to have got the hang of PowerPoint.

I have found the corkscrew and I think I might just use it....

R
.



.