Summoning was great. We had a relaxed preparation once the tent upgrade (which looks very good!) was finished. The car was packed on Thursday evening so we could leave early on Friday morning. Except that the car would not start. Dead battery. Matthijs had left on the little lamp on the ceiling of the car and thusly emptied the battery. However, that had been a week before the summ and we had driven to Castlefest and back and, one would think, charged the battery again. Alas, after testing the lights on Thursday evening the battery was dead again on Friday morning. Fortunately a neighbour could help us start the car with the help of his car and our start cables.

When we arrived at the grounds we noticed that faction Leviathan (water) had a very small space for a lot of tents, so we had to measure and uproot some plants to fit two of our three tents in. Fortunately we found a spot near the fireplace because fire was only allowed on such fireplaces and really nowhere else, which makes IC cooking a bit of a drag when your tent and supplies are far away. We had a nice little camp and almost took over the fireplace. People came to sit there and drink our tea. We had a pot boiling water ready at all times.

Without Kaas to play Enids husband Vandar it was a bit weird, but I had enough play with all the other people. Enid has gotten a bit more secure about herself, since she was put to the task of managing one of the groups of the summoning ritual. She also participated in burying one of the Chaos seals and joined the healer guild. So play was good. (Except for a few tensions between people, on which I won't elaborate here)

Getting home was more of a fuss. Of course it had been reasonable weather. Too much clouds to my taste, but still warm and at least free of rain. However, as seems to be the new trend, it started to rain on Monday afternoon when we had to pack up. So in the end we still had to dry the sahara tent and 3 huge plastic sheets in our shed and living room. And the car battery was dead again so we had to ask Peter to help us start. That battery was just beyond helping.

So, now we have a new car battery installed (80 euro) and the next problem occurs. For a while I thought I'd heard a tinkling sound coming from the back of the car while driving. It seems to be the exhaust (uitlaat) in which a loose part is bumping around when the car is 'shaking' (i.e. running). Hoping that it would be something as simple as a loose bolt I went to the Kia dealer and they told me that it would take a repair of 450 euro to get it fixed. F*ck!. 450 (APK) + 80 (battery) + 450 (exhaust) would be about the 1000 euro that we can get for this car when we hand it in!

The car is some 10 years old. True, old cars need more repairs than new cars, but in half a year 1000 euro costs is a bit too much to my taste. However my dad advised me to go to a regular garage (instead of the Kia specialist) to see what it would cost me there and pointed out (what I already knew) that a 'new' secondhand car would bring costs as well, as would a new one which is just very expensive. Nicole, from Musilon, has offered that her boyfriend would take a look at our car to see if he can predict which part will be the next to give up. If there's more in there on the point of breaking a 450 or so repair might not be worth it.

The car trouble isn't acute; we can still drive around in the car but the prediction is that the rambling parts will start rambling harder up to the point where we don't want to drive anymore. It does need to get fixed, but it is not in a hurry.

Tomorrow my mom and her girlfriend will come over for dinner and bring our new supply of cat food (25 kg). Thursday evening is free as of yet and on Friday Matthijs will (if he can manage) go to the graduation speech of Rene and after that to Harderwijk/Lelystad for the 24-hour sailing race. My weekend is still empty. Perhaps I should try to finish my autumn coat.