The Second Year
There is a gap now, well in the "interesting" things list.... The next "fun" step would be Christmas 2000, in which I decide to come home to celebrate the Christmas festivities, as well as do something with the brakes, which are refusing to work on the fourth press....

I journey home, and eventually stop outside my parents house, get out, stretch, shiver and wish I'd fitted a heater. I then unpack, sadly as I do so the passenger window lands on the passenger seat and I start to suspect that the door top has finally had it. Thinking that the Drivers side door top is not too clever I remove that one, as well as the rusted remains of the passenger one. After all, the vehicle can sit in the garage over Christmas, until I fit new ones.

WRONG. Several quirks of my family history come into play here namely that my mother likes Real Christmas Trees and my father, for the first time in a while is now not driving a company car, and therefore doesn't want to fill it with pine needles. "Fair enough" decides mother, there is a solution to this, Daz can pick the Christmas Tree up in Petro and fetch it back. So, the plan is made, and against my better judgement (and consultation) the plan is this... Mother and Father drive the NICE HEATED Discovery to Bacup (about a mile or so away) and pick up a Tree, I'll follow behind so that we can stick it on the roof, Bob - as they say - is a relative.

Down in Bacup now, mother cannot find a tree that she likes, "we'll try Stacksteads", OK, whatever, Stacksteads is about 2 miles away, and as it happens doesn't have any nice Trees either. I'm now three or so miles away from home and if you remember have no Heater or door-tops. So we decide (the term "we" should be read as "mum") to try Waterfoot, five miles away from home and just a few minutes down the road.

Waterfoot doesn't sell Christmas Trees, they do however have a car park where I hop around from one foot to the other in order to heat myself up a bit... I also start rubbing my hands and try to turn my nose the correct colour. Mum and Dad get back in the NICE HEATED Discovery again, and just so they don't let the horrible cold get in, they ring me to say, "We're going to try Rawtenstall" rather than open the window and tell the poor miserable looking smurf in the Series 2 next to them.

Rawtenstall is noted for many things, A Steam Train, a Metal Tree, a fire station on a roundabout. It should also be noted for its complete lack of Christmas Trees, and for the fact that it is sufficiently far away from home (about an hour we've been out by now) to mean that I have no feeling in either my hands, feet or nose.

The phone rings, and Father explains (from the NICE HEATED Discovery) that there is a place "just up the road" That we'll try, before giving up and going home. At this point I try to explain two things, one... I'm bloody freezing and two it's just started snowing. However I get talked into popping up the road, as it's "not very far"...

Twenty miles later, the people in the NICE HEATED Discovery finally turn off into a car park at said "local" Christmas Tree Shop. I have now not only lost all feeling in most of my body, but have a good layer of frost in my hair and beard, ice forming on my coat and a good idea of exactly how my parents are going to meet their (untimely) demise.

We finally find a tree that mother likes, "do you like it?" she says innocently enough, "listen, I'm cold and hungry, I'd ButtF**k Rudolf for a Christmas tree around about now" says I, which Mother interprets as a yes....

Three weeks later, I fit door-tops and connect the heater, and Frank tells me that I'm a wimp for wanting the heater.... No, I just don't trust my relatives that much ;)

Next come the brakes. They are goosed, and Bill graciously offers to help us bleed them. This however proves useless as half of the bleed nipples are goosed and so on...

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I replace all four-wheel cylinders, the master cylinder, all the brake lines, the front nearside flexi and the pedal housing for good measure. The brakes work perfectly - now - however having replaced every component (except the shoes which looked new) they probably should.