DVT DAYS 148 & 149

Yesterday, Monday, was a bit of a duff day really having started with the dentist ad moving onto the aggravation of my partner being told by the garage that they wanted £600 to replace two seat belts and tensioners. Without working seat belts there will be no M.O.T. So a lot of my day was spent watching videos of a wide range of iffy blokes doing things to cars. However as life is perverse the one thing these videos told me was that I did not have the right lubricant for the job so it meant a quick trip to Amazon to order it for the next day. The rest of my day was on board the bike and watching the end of series two of Stranger Things before going to bed dog tired.

Today Tuesday has been a day of achievement. I managed to retreat to the shed and write letters this morning. I even manged to get them in the post early before I settled down to a late morning meeting to discuss the Open Forums. A productive morning and one that will hopefully bear fruit in the near future.

Its car time. I empty out my partners car and examine the rear seat belts that were laying around like lazy snakes on the back seat. Very little if any recoil on them so I try to take the interior panel off but although they pop out at the top they are pinned in at the base. No way in there. I can see the mechanism though a grill in the panel. I am able to get a screw drive through the slots and very slowly rewind the seat belt back onto the spindle. The first belt has a bit of recoil in it and although slow will rewind very slowly. The second one is far more obdurate and difficult to rewind and shows no sign of recoil at all. I get as far as I can and have to pack up and wait for my lubricant to arrive. I thought I would climb on the exercise bike but before I could change into my kit Mr Amazon delivered my special lubricant.

Back out in the car I push the lubricant nozzle through the grill and give the first belt drum a squirt and gently pull the belt and let it recoil, I do this over and over again and add lubricant to the belt as I let more of it wind onto the drum. Within a couple of minutes the belt is running in and out on recoil as it should. One down, one to go. The second one was more of a problem as it had no recoil at all so I pulled it out as far as possible and then tugged it hard till it clicked as it should when in an accident. I did this three or four time while adding lubricant and slowly the belt. started to rewinds as it should. I lubricated the mechanism more but also lubricated the belt itself. In no time at all the belt was running smoothly and the recoil working as it should. So job done, £600 pounds saved. The MOT will be done at the garage that looks after the Wolf. So everything is back in place and now I face an evening of anxiety as Brentford play Fulham for a place in the premier league. I shall distract myself with Stranger Things.

NEWSFLASH: BRENTFORD 1

FULHAM 2. GUTTED