From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/
The aftermath of the gas men working here for 2 days was that there was a pile of rubbish sitting outside our house, including 2 spent radiators. They'd neatly bagged the rubbish and told us - again - that a team would be along to take it all away - but, as usual, they never showed, so we had little option but to take it all to the tip ourselves.
After all, the front of our house looks like a big enough tip without adding more to it - we've had the planks on our porch missing since early this year, waiting for the builders to come back and fix the leak on our balcony, after which they were supposed to replace the harling, which is coming away from the building after the Virginia Creepers did their worst. Then there's the old Mercedes sitting at the front door, rusting away - we were assured again that it would be moving "in the next couple of days", but we're still waiting.
So this morning I put the back seats in my car down and started to load the radiators. It was only as I was lifting the second one that I realised they hadn't been fully emptied - there was black gunge seeping out - in my car and on the driveway. I rushed back in to the house calling Jo for help - but I never thought about my feet. My shoe soles were carrying the black gunge in to the house - help!
Eventually we managed to drain the radiators and block up the holes sufficiently to allow me to drive them to the tip, whilst Jo was left mopping up the mess. All's well that ends well, but it could have been a real disaster. Even the inside of my car seems not to have suffered too much.
So we're sitting here waiting for the turkey to defrost. You would have thought that almost 3 days would have been enough, but apparently not, so I'll need to nip to the Cook Shop and try to pick up a food thermometer/probe. Jo may have to wait until tomorrow to cook the bird.
I was back at the Doctor's on Thursday, getting my 6 month check-up on the damaged skin on my nose. He said it was mostly OK - no sign of anything happening apart from one tiny bit at the top of the mark. He offered to zap it there and then - and he did, but it means I'll be featuring a red spot on my nose in my Xmas photos - see if you can "spot" it.
Ian R. Stewart Family Blog
Saturday, 24 December 2011
Friday, 23 December 2011
Whew!
From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/
Well - what a 2 days it's been - I'm glad I was at work as our house was torn apart by the Gas board as they attempted to fix the saga of the leaking radiators. They ended up stripping and draining the entire system, cleaning out all the gunge and it appears we now have a fully functioning central heating system again - just in time for Christmas.
There was one final potential crisis averted as well. Just as the men were tidying up and preparing to leave, Ross was heading for his shower prior to going on his work's night out. He decided the main shower upstairs wouldn't be ready as the heating had been off most of the day when the men were working on the system, so he thought he'd use the downstairs electric shower. It seemed to be working again after shorting out a few months ago. Ross got in to the shower, then - bang! All the power went - no TV, no cooker - nothing except the lighting circuit was left on.
I initially thought it was something Jo had done as she was fiddling with tree lights for our second (mini, artificial) tree in the back room. Then my mind turned to the work that the gas men had been doing, but all was revealed shortly. We managed to get it up and running again eventually, thank goodness, but we definitely need to get an electrician out to fix this weak spot in our electrical system.
I was out at the Golf Club Committee and Staff Christmas dinner at the Tor-na-Coille last night. Very nice it was too - 19 of us there, but the staff were vastly outnumbered by the Committee. We made a £10 contribution to the food and drink, but that seems paltry - I felt a little guilty at using Golf Club funds for this, but I suppose it's the one perk that the volunteers on the Committee get.
Hopefully a fairly short day today - and some squash this afternoon. Tomorrow is our annual oldies football match which also celebrates Dave Williamson's birthday. It'll be a bit like outdoor Subbuteo - at least on my part. Not sure how my knees will stand up to it - I'll take it easy.
Enjoy the festivities everyone.
Well - what a 2 days it's been - I'm glad I was at work as our house was torn apart by the Gas board as they attempted to fix the saga of the leaking radiators. They ended up stripping and draining the entire system, cleaning out all the gunge and it appears we now have a fully functioning central heating system again - just in time for Christmas.
There was one final potential crisis averted as well. Just as the men were tidying up and preparing to leave, Ross was heading for his shower prior to going on his work's night out. He decided the main shower upstairs wouldn't be ready as the heating had been off most of the day when the men were working on the system, so he thought he'd use the downstairs electric shower. It seemed to be working again after shorting out a few months ago. Ross got in to the shower, then - bang! All the power went - no TV, no cooker - nothing except the lighting circuit was left on.
I initially thought it was something Jo had done as she was fiddling with tree lights for our second (mini, artificial) tree in the back room. Then my mind turned to the work that the gas men had been doing, but all was revealed shortly. We managed to get it up and running again eventually, thank goodness, but we definitely need to get an electrician out to fix this weak spot in our electrical system.
I was out at the Golf Club Committee and Staff Christmas dinner at the Tor-na-Coille last night. Very nice it was too - 19 of us there, but the staff were vastly outnumbered by the Committee. We made a £10 contribution to the food and drink, but that seems paltry - I felt a little guilty at using Golf Club funds for this, but I suppose it's the one perk that the volunteers on the Committee get.
Hopefully a fairly short day today - and some squash this afternoon. Tomorrow is our annual oldies football match which also celebrates Dave Williamson's birthday. It'll be a bit like outdoor Subbuteo - at least on my part. Not sure how my knees will stand up to it - I'll take it easy.
Enjoy the festivities everyone.
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Crisis approaching
From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/
Why a crisis? Well, I still haven't got a 2nd present for Jo. Should I panic? Probably.
I did get our other (joint) present yesterday - a replacement TV for our bedroom - very nice it is too - it's a Samsung 32" Smart TV. Why "Smart"? Well, it's got wireless and there's a number of Android style Apps on it, including BBC i-Player, Facebook etc. There's also an inbuilt Freeview HD box, but we can't use that yet, because the aerial cable they supplied is so short! We also now need to get another Sky HD box to properly use the HD facilities of the new set.
Ross had a frustrating time at the Doctor's yesterday. He nipped out from work for his 2pm appointment but had to wait an hour before Dr. Platt appeared - but even then it wasn't for him - it was the previous patient! Ross had to go back to work so this appointment will have to be re-arranged for another time.
It's the shortest day of the year - and it shows - it's barely been light today. It also would have been Dad's 91st birthday.
Why a crisis? Well, I still haven't got a 2nd present for Jo. Should I panic? Probably.
I did get our other (joint) present yesterday - a replacement TV for our bedroom - very nice it is too - it's a Samsung 32" Smart TV. Why "Smart"? Well, it's got wireless and there's a number of Android style Apps on it, including BBC i-Player, Facebook etc. There's also an inbuilt Freeview HD box, but we can't use that yet, because the aerial cable they supplied is so short! We also now need to get another Sky HD box to properly use the HD facilities of the new set.
Ross had a frustrating time at the Doctor's yesterday. He nipped out from work for his 2pm appointment but had to wait an hour before Dr. Platt appeared - but even then it wasn't for him - it was the previous patient! Ross had to go back to work so this appointment will have to be re-arranged for another time.
It's the shortest day of the year - and it shows - it's barely been light today. It also would have been Dad's 91st birthday.
Monday, 19 December 2011
Christmas week
From http://ianrstewart.blogspot.com/
Last week was - unusually for me - a pretty full and busy time at work, including 2 consecutive day trips to Fraserburgh. I had thought that travel might be a bit tricky as I go cross country along some of the lesser used roads, but we're fortunate in not really having had any proper snow yet, and although it's been cold and we've had to scrape the cars in the morning, I haven't encountered any of the horrendous black ice we experienced last year - not yet anyway.
I got a couple of games of squash, but didn't golf yesterday - nobody was very keen after our night out on Saturday (see golf blog for photos). It was, in fact, a day of vegetation - or, as Sky Sports called it, Super Sunday - 3 big matches on TV from noon to 6 pm. What with all that, plus recorded Match of the Day, and the Sunday Times too, I didn't move much from my chair. Jo was out for dinner with her pals last night at the Tor-na-Coille so we didn't see much of each other yesterday.
We had a brief trip out on Saturday morning to drop off some salmon and then select a Christmas tree at the garden centre. £50 it was - although they did deliver it. I should think so too at that price. A little controversially, the tree was not erected in its usual place:
Still to be decorated of course.
Now that Kelly's moved house, we've also had to change our plans a little for our upcoming trip to Adelaide. We had originally booked our first week in Semaphore, which is a bit nearer where Kelly used to stay in North Adelaide, but now that she's moved, I've re-arranged and we're going back to the same apartments in Glenelg that we were in this year - only this time with a sea view.
Been trying to sort out our Sky TV subscription as well - been having problems with our multi-room connection ever since Ross did some re-wiring of our telephone system a few months ago. I didn't realise at the time what the full implications might be, but as Sky can't get a callback signal from the second box in our bedroom, their system immediately defaults to an assumption that the box could have moved - to a second home, for instance - and they now charge another £34.50 per month for it. Ross thinks he has a solution but it means moving so much stuff in our garage to access the connections. Meantime, we've had to put some temporary cabling from our bedroom to our back room - Jo was horrified when she saw it running across the floor and then drooping off the lights last night!
Still haven't picked a replacement TV for our bedroom either - there's so many choices - Freeview HD, internet TV, 3-D etc etc. I was also thinking about DAB radio as well. I currently record a lot of radio programmes on the Sky box, then transfer them to my Archos, then to my PC, then convert them to audio, then put them on my memory stick to listen to in my car - quite a process. So I thought that if I had a DAB radio and I could record directly on to a memory stick, that would save a lot of hassle - but it appears that none of the DAB radios on the market do that. Many of them record, but they all seem to do it to an SD card, rather than a memory stick - why?
So, turkey ordered - all set now, except for the fact that, apart from her big present which we got at the Apple Store, I don't have anything else for Jo yet. Mmmm - thinking cap on.
And just to prove that we're always thinking about our children:
Last photo was taken yesterday morning from the War Memorial looking towards Arbor Court, on my way back from buying the Sunday Times. It was a beautiful, bright, crisp morning and it shows the miserable dusting of snow we had overnight - the first this winter:
Last week was - unusually for me - a pretty full and busy time at work, including 2 consecutive day trips to Fraserburgh. I had thought that travel might be a bit tricky as I go cross country along some of the lesser used roads, but we're fortunate in not really having had any proper snow yet, and although it's been cold and we've had to scrape the cars in the morning, I haven't encountered any of the horrendous black ice we experienced last year - not yet anyway.
I got a couple of games of squash, but didn't golf yesterday - nobody was very keen after our night out on Saturday (see golf blog for photos). It was, in fact, a day of vegetation - or, as Sky Sports called it, Super Sunday - 3 big matches on TV from noon to 6 pm. What with all that, plus recorded Match of the Day, and the Sunday Times too, I didn't move much from my chair. Jo was out for dinner with her pals last night at the Tor-na-Coille so we didn't see much of each other yesterday.
We had a brief trip out on Saturday morning to drop off some salmon and then select a Christmas tree at the garden centre. £50 it was - although they did deliver it. I should think so too at that price. A little controversially, the tree was not erected in its usual place:
Still to be decorated of course.
Now that Kelly's moved house, we've also had to change our plans a little for our upcoming trip to Adelaide. We had originally booked our first week in Semaphore, which is a bit nearer where Kelly used to stay in North Adelaide, but now that she's moved, I've re-arranged and we're going back to the same apartments in Glenelg that we were in this year - only this time with a sea view.
Been trying to sort out our Sky TV subscription as well - been having problems with our multi-room connection ever since Ross did some re-wiring of our telephone system a few months ago. I didn't realise at the time what the full implications might be, but as Sky can't get a callback signal from the second box in our bedroom, their system immediately defaults to an assumption that the box could have moved - to a second home, for instance - and they now charge another £34.50 per month for it. Ross thinks he has a solution but it means moving so much stuff in our garage to access the connections. Meantime, we've had to put some temporary cabling from our bedroom to our back room - Jo was horrified when she saw it running across the floor and then drooping off the lights last night!
Still haven't picked a replacement TV for our bedroom either - there's so many choices - Freeview HD, internet TV, 3-D etc etc. I was also thinking about DAB radio as well. I currently record a lot of radio programmes on the Sky box, then transfer them to my Archos, then to my PC, then convert them to audio, then put them on my memory stick to listen to in my car - quite a process. So I thought that if I had a DAB radio and I could record directly on to a memory stick, that would save a lot of hassle - but it appears that none of the DAB radios on the market do that. Many of them record, but they all seem to do it to an SD card, rather than a memory stick - why?
So, turkey ordered - all set now, except for the fact that, apart from her big present which we got at the Apple Store, I don't have anything else for Jo yet. Mmmm - thinking cap on.
And just to prove that we're always thinking about our children:
Last photo was taken yesterday morning from the War Memorial looking towards Arbor Court, on my way back from buying the Sunday Times. It was a beautiful, bright, crisp morning and it shows the miserable dusting of snow we had overnight - the first this winter:
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