Taking Calum for a walk :-)

Not much in the way of stars this morning, black, mild and dry outside, no sign of yesterday’s spectacular star studded sky and numerous constellations many of which are only visible during the winter. Not that I know many of them but Orion and Pleiades are at least two that you only see at this time of year and both were showing off the previous evening. It was a ‘pure peach’ of a day on Saturday but before I realised just how lovely it was gonna be I spent some time on the Land Rover ‘spaghetti’.

 

My goal being to get the instrument cluster and various warning lights working but as is often the case, something that seems relatively straight forward on the surface turned into an epic. Sure the gauges and their backlighting was straight forward enough but trying to get the ‘low fuel warning light’ to work sent my brain into a spin. Sure, it’s really easy, there are three wires on the sender unit in the tank, one goes to the warning light, one to the fuel gauge and one to earth. That’s what it shows in all three wiring diagrams that cover the three different looms in my Landy, so a simple task of utilising one of the 20 wires I’ve run through the chassis that is not already spoken for and then connecting it to the white and slate coloured wire that goes to the warning light. Not a chance, after much trawling of the Internet after giving up on all the wiring diagrams in the Haynes manual I discover these threads,   https://www.defendersource.com/threads/row-tdi-low-fuel-light.73023/ , https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/low-fuel-light-nightmare.311855/

and this little PCB taped into the instrument cluster loom. This appears in no wiring diagrams or parts books and was buried in the wiring loom I had bought off eBay to replace the one lost by Tayside Land Rover. Whereas early Defenders use a simple three wire system later ones have three wires on the sender unit but the white and slate one that goes to the low fuel light does not actually go there!!! no, in fact it does not go anywhere!!! it just ends inside the loom around the bulkhead. The ‘low fuel warning light’ being controlled by this little secret module that turns on the light when the fuel gauge (green and black) wire reaches a certain resistance value that corresponds to a few litres of fuel in the tank. Sure, it’s a good idea, just wish they didn’t keep it secret Luckily, it was a pure peach of a day so I gave up on the fuel light for a while and took Molly and Calum the Kubota over to Torran after giving him a good greasing, filling with fuel and loading his spare buckets into a trailer.

 

I had some drains to clear and some exploration to do to find the course of a water pipe and had had enough of being stuck inside a shed on such a fine day.

   

Surprisingly enough the pigs didn’t follow and after twenty minute of bouncing down the track at less than walking pace Molly abandoned me too.

 

It is much further than the sign suggests Only ten minutes walk right enough but a good half hour in the digger.

 

Keenly watched by a golden eagle Molly and I walked back to get the buckets before I spent the afternoon fruitlessly trying to get my fuel light working. It being far too nice to go inside and consult the Internet. Something I should have done much earlier in the day, it would have saved me hours that I could have spent in the sunshine

Anyway, it’s well after 8:00 now, the pigs have been fed and let out, Molly and I have done our exercises

 

  

the ‘first breakfast’ is almost eaten and the second pot of coffee made. Time to go and attack my fuel light once more before I return inside to have ‘second breakfast’ and put my leg of lamb in the oven. No marinade today, methinks I’ll just rub some olive oil, garlic and rosemary over it then cook it ‘low and slow’. Thought it was beef when I dug it out the freezer and I’ve no mint sauce

Ready for action :-)

That’s it, the start of a new week and me almost half way through my holiday’s. The clocks have gone back and I’m in an inexplicably good mood, bouncing out of bed this morning at the rather sane time of 6:30!!!. The beautiful red glow of Venus in the first glint of dawn just obliterated by yet another boodly rain shower

 

Still, I attacked my morning stretches with a new vigour going for thirty of each rather than the regular twenty and lacing the strong black coffee That starts my day with three spoons of sugar!!! I haven’t taken sugar in anything for forty years or more!! In fact I rarely have it in the house. However this particular pot had been sat on the hotplate all night and was so strong it seemed to look and smell like coal tar. By the time I’d finished sugaring it it had the constituency of crude oil It was great.

Sunday

The beginning of GMT always fills me with dread, seeming to amplify the nights and shorten the days. Of course it doesn’t but that’s how it feels to me and my body clock is pure fecked until Christmas at least. Still, it dig give me more time to marinade my haunch of venison that I’d planned for Sunday dinner.

 

I’d forgotten to do it on Saturday night so diced it and stuck it in half a bottle of port along with five cloves of garlic and three bay leaves. It was 6:00am so would get a good six hours before going in a low oven for several more

 

At 7:00 with dawn breaking I dragged Molly outdoors to feed the pigs and chooks before settling down to some work in the shed. A satisfying little job repairing a heat exchanger for a friend’s fishing boat. Taking me right up to the arrival of my dinner guest it heralded the end of ‘shed work’ for the day

That was it really for the Sabbath, a nice meal, good company and a wee walk between showers with the dugs. Before turning in at the unheard of late hour of around 22:00 I wandered around the croft with a torch looking at all the blocked drains and making a mental note to deal with them today. The whole area around the house being waterlogged