I've just been out in the supposedly 'danger to life' winds to bring the dustbins in. I felt a light breeze up the back of my jumper as I stooped to open the back gate, but that was the extent of the damage so far.

There shouldn't really be much pressure under the rocker cover, unless you have major problems with valve stem seals and piston rings. Anyway, it'll breathe out via the tube that goes from the rocker cover to the air inlet. TD5 ECUs do deteriorate. I've had considerably more duff ECUs than flat...

On a couple of occasions now I've found this sort of thing was caused by the light switch mechanism being elderly. The full headlight current runs through the switch so the metal contacts get warm and the plastic distorts, leaving them making only intermittent contact. I've found it easier to...

Snow in Wales at last. A decent covering on my doorstep:

I believe the information is stored in the speedo unit. I've still got my original speedo, but I've been through several ECUs and it doesntl change the odometer.

Yes, I like doing that sort of thing. As a way of buying timber, they're actually pretty good value. Thicker than standard floorboarding, so they add a bit of structural rigidity too. If you can get 'unbanded' ones you don't even have to mess about talking the metalwork off. Not just floors...

Oops, put a post in the wrong place

I've absent mindedly spooned coffee into the kettle rather than my cup. I don't suppose it matters. It's all I ever use the kettle for anyway.

I've trundled over to the smallholding project this afternoon. I had to go slowly because the fog was so thick, but once I climbed up into the Cambrian mountains I was above the clouds: Just getting things out of the car in that picture. It was so sunny up above the fog line that my solar panels...

Well, stick a sign up in the front garden and invite passsers-by in for a while-you-wait ear evacuation. Record the results and put them on Youtube. Those ear clearance videos seem to be very popular. Nice little retirement earner.

Yes, there's an awful lot of junk electronics around. It's like being in Bladerunner. I see the Chinese government's efforts to prevent China becoming a giant electronic waste dump have yet to have any noticeable effect. There's a thriving global economy in shifting e-waste. I really enjoyed...

I attempted to charge a rechargeable torch/inspection light yesterday and it melted the USB cable. I kept smelling a strange smell yesterday and looked all over to see what it was, but didn't imagine it would be a USB charger. Xylia was soaking her feet so I thought it was some sort of additive...

Yes, that's what it made me think of too. Many moons ago back in the 1990s I remember sitting in an Indian restaurant in Birmingham during a torrential shower of rain in which the road turned into a river. Then a fire engine turned up at the pub opposite. Surely it can't be on fire in all this...

Dunno if I'd fancy eating a whole tub of cottage cheese on its own. It's OK on a baked potato, for example. Also, if it's 'natural' it probably won't have any added salt so will be about as appetising as eating the lumps in sour milk.

As CY is often used as an abbreviation for Cyprus, could it be a Black Rhino brand? Seeing as that's where they come from. The shield shape is like the Cyprus coat of arms too.

I replaced fuel lines on mine but this was several years ago so I don't remember exactly what I did. However, I remember they came rather like yours, with the clips in a separate bag. I don't remember it beign a major problem - I just pushed them together in the same orientation and using the...

Well, it's possible that it's an ECU fault, but my TD5 has a momentary hesitation on reverting to tickover after haivng been revved. This has persisted over several different ECUs I've run in it. I just assumed this was something to do with the way they were programmed. It doesn't seem to affect...

Also, springs tend to 'sink' over the years so when you put new ones on it looks higher. Last time I put new springs on mine it looked so much higher that I went and got the packaging out of the bin to see if I'd been sent 2" lift ones by mistake. No, sure enough they were 'standard'; just not...

Yes, that's always been an attractive feature of Apple products. The straight-out-of-the-box facilities for playing with pictures, music and online communications have always been ahead of what you get with PCs. They've also put a lot of effort into their screens and even their packaging.

Jeff Bezos has just been to the door and dropped me off a new keyboard . I thought I might as well get a new one to match all my other new stuff seeing as the letters and numbers are wearing off my old one so typing is a tittle hit and miss.