Bedding Down
Posted: Sat 30 May, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, House Work, Thoughts Leave a comment »On Friday, I managed to break our bed. (No, nothing dirty – get your minds out the gutter!)
The main support in the middle of the bed (going end to end) is/was a piece of box-frame steel, and that piece of steel buckled, which then resulted in four of the wooden slats going across the bed to break.
We bought the bed less than two years ago, so I went back to the place we bought it, to see whether we could get a replacement bar and slats, or whatever was necessary – seeing as the bed was completely unusable ’til repair/replacement.
Anyway, it turns out we’re not the first people that this has happened to, and it’s a known issue. In fairness, our was only the third or fourth one it had happened to, but it meant that the store is aware of the issue, and it’s not a problem to replace the bar.
So I was able to pick up the replacement bar and slats from their warehouse (still in Norwich) and less than an hour after going to the store, I’d got the replacement bits in the car and driving home – along with some extra advice from one of their warehouse guys, who had also had it happen to him.
As a result, we now have the bed back together, with a couple of extra supports under the metal bar, just to help spread the load a bit more – and the supports were even made by me. Sure, they’re nothing special – just a couple of bits of wood under the bar, but they needed measuring, and cutting straight ( normally my primary problem when it comes to DIY) but they got done traight off, without even the need for a re-measure or a re-cut.
All told, I’m sadly chuffed at having sorted the bed out so quickly, including the extra bits necessary. And who knows, it may also provide just a little bit more motivation on that “needing to lose weight” thing. We’ll see.
More Garden Guff
Posted: Mon 18 May, 2009 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Green Garden, House Work Leave a comment »Yesterday was emphatically not a day of rest – primarily because we spent most of it in the garden. Again.
The first surprise came when I went up to let the chickens out in the morning – and found three peacocks (OK, technically one peacock and two peahens) in the chicken run. They quickly fluttered up on to the fence, and then next door, but returned a couple of times more before finally being scared off by Hound. There’s a colony of peacocks over by the church (probably half a mile from us) so it wasn’t a complete “Where the hell did they come from” moment, but it’s still the first time we’ve had them in our garden since we moved here.
From there we got a bundle of work done, including finishing filling the remaining three raised beds on the veg plot (using the best part of another ton of earth) and finally planting stuff in the bloody things. So we now have raised beds containing :
- Broad Beans
- Peas
- Strawberries
- Pumpkins
- Courgettes
In addition, scattered round the rest of the veg patch we’ve got :
- Raspberries (18 canes’ worth)
- Gooseberries (4 bushes)
- Blackberry (1 plant)
- Rhubarb (4 plants)
- Garlic (2 rows)
- Onions (3 rows – although they’re not doing much)
- Beetroot (1 row of white, 1 of red)
- Potatoes (3 buckets, two of which have so far been successful)
- Various herbs and odds-n-sods
Bear in mind, this is actually a reduced list from last year, due to us not actually managing much garden-wise last year. *ahem*
Anyway, with that little lot sorted, Herself also planted a bundle of stuff round the new pond (Hound was being a pain in the arse by this time, and got dragged indoors by Yours Truly) including foxgloves, lambs ears (it’s a plant, we’re not that cruel!), salvias, and other stuff I now can’t remember the name of.
Along the way there was also other bits and bobs, but it was a pretty busy day all told.
And that’s why I didn’t update yesterday…
Sanding / No connection
Posted: Tue 5 May, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, House Work Leave a comment »Yesterday was spent with absolutely no internet connection at home. For once this was a choice thing, rather than some esoteric Bank Holiday Fuckup by BT, Tiscali or anyone else.
Basically, the main phone point is in the hallway, and over the weekend the hallway got cleared out so we could sand/seal/varnish the teak parquet floor.
Yes, Herself was back trusting me with power tools. Go figure.
So yesterday was the day the actual sanding took place. And all went amazingly well.
The floor was (it turned out) amazingly dirty – the parquet looked more like mahogany than teak. Then the industrial floor sanders came out, and now it’s all teaky and beautiful again. I’m not perfect with the sanders, but the job has come up looking fantastic.
It’s all been sealed/varnished again as well, using Ronseal’s “Diamond Hard” clear floor varnish – a product which certainly lives up to it’s description, but also makes the floor look even better.
There’s a couple more marks/dents/lines in the floor than there used to be, but they’re not horrendous – I’m sure we’ll stop noticing them soon. I bloody hope so anyway, because it’s now going to be a complete bastard to go back down through the new varnish if we did decide to sand them out completely.
But it’s all done now. There’s a lot more work to be done in the hallway – woodwork and walls to be (re)painted etc., and so on, but the final big job in the house is now complete.
Mileage
Posted: Thu 30 April, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, House Work 1 Comment »Today and tomorrow are going to be primarily spent in the car, I feel.
Today I’ve had an interview for a contract role down in Welwyn Garden City – checking out the lie of the land, and whether I can do the drive as a daily commute for a couple of weeks before knocking that back by working from home for a while (I can – the “2 hours+” listed by AA and TomTom rapidly descended to around the 90 minute mark, with just the A505 being a slow-moving piece of shit road)
Tomorrow is the longer (much, much longer) day – because of the planned work for next week, I’m taking Hound down to her old kennels/staying place in Wokingham. From there, I’ll be driving to the O2 arena (ex Millennium Dome) where we’ll be seeing Pink in concert – Herself plus Herself’s Sister and Husband will be driving down separately, and we’ll meet up at t’O2 – and then I’ll be driving home with Herself once the gig’s finished.
Saturday is going to involve a trip to Norwich to pick up the floor sanders, and over the next week we’ll finally be sanding down and re-sealing/varnishing the parquet floor in the hallway, which is the last of the big house jobs. Yay!
So don’t expect much in the way of updates tomorrow – although I might write a couple today if I can be arsed and/or think up stuff to write…
Yesterday
Posted: Sun 22 March, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Green Garden, House Work Leave a comment »Well, as it turns out, the problem with the cooker was actually an issue with the gas supply stuff outside the house – the low-pressure thingy had been triggered somehow, and was doing exactly what it was supposed to do.
Luckily, the cooker engineer who came out was lovely, and willing to talk to the guy who had done the original install (who also knew we were more than slightly fucked off by the entire thing) so between them they got it sorted out. Even better, because it was something we didn’t know about – allbeit had looked at, when it looked fine – we didn’t get charged anything for them fixing the problem.
And as well as now having a working cooker again – for which happy, happy day – we’ve also managed to get a number of jobs done round the house.
- Kitchen wall tiles are now all grouted in. (Floor tiles will be done on Monday, most likely)
- Appointment has been made with an accountant to see what’s going to happen.
- I’ve started painting the wooden fence panels. Six down, ninety-one to go.
- We’ve started laying a bundle of weed-proof membrane over bits of the veg patch, for work over the next few weeks
- The fruit trees have had a trim/prune
- We’ve done a bundle of other stuff too. I just can’t remember it right now.
So yes, while we’re not “on holiday” as such, it’s looking like it’ll be fairly productive and get a bundle of outstanding jobs out the way. (Which will, of course, just make room for other jobs instead)
Inauspicious Starts
Posted: Sat 21 March, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Organised, House Work Leave a comment »So, the week off work begins with…
- Engineer visit to find out what’s wrong with the bastard cooker
- A letter from my cretinous ex-accountant’s Official Receiver, basically stating I’ve got fuck-all chance of getting any money back. (Which can be summarised thus : Assets : £5,000. Debts : £150,000. Chances : Fuck All)
- Herself grouting tiles
- Yours Truly painting/creosoting fence panels. There’s only 100 of ’em to do…
Still, at least I’m not back in work for a while now. Silver linings, clouds, and all that guff.
Changing Plans
Posted: Fri 20 March, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, House Work, Travel 3 Comments »In the last week, we’ve had the following stuff at the house…
- Last Friday – water leak under the sink (fixed that evening) – kitchen water completely off
- Weekend – doing all the floor tiles
- Monday – another (different) water leak under the sink – water turned completely off
- Tuesday – water leak fixed
- Wednesday – Power cut off, due to EDF doing work on power supply in village
- Wednesday – No gas going to brand new gas cooker. Nothing at all – both bottles are full, no kinks in the pipe, nothing blocked. Auto-shutoff on the cooker seems to be OK. But there’s no gas.
- Thursday – still no gas to cooker
- Friday – ditto
There’s an engineer visit booked for tomorrow to check the cooker.
So all told, over this week my sense of humour has utterly failed, which is never a good sign.
As a result, and with plenty of other outstanding jobs to do, we’ve taken the decision to move our break from next week to [some other time] (although we’re as yet undecided to when) and we’ll spend the week at home instead, sorting out some of the outstanding stuff, and taking time out that way instead.
Luckily the people at Scottish Country Cottages have been lovely, and allowed us to change the booking at very short notice – we explained the situation, and they’ve been very understanding.
In the current situation I can’t deny, I’m actually happier to not be going – I wasn’t massively looking forward to the drive, and I think we’d both be focussing on what was happening at home, plus what we could be doing at home instead of being up in Scotland. That happened two years ago, and was the final point for us coming home early from Devon.
So we’re at home instead of in Scotland. There’s still pre-written posts to come during the week, but I’ll be adding in random stuff too. Probably.