In a land far, far away

Well it seems like that sometimes.........and I get stick from my regular readers for not posting too often. This is as much due to my routine lifestyle than anything else. I don't want to write about golf, DIY, life in Scouseland and family all the time, unless something out of the ordinary happens.

So,is  no hot water, a ruptured tap spout and number two daughter locked out of her house on her birthday routine? It's a good question, and , yes, it probably is routine as we have at least one major crisis just before Christmas.

In the past we have had the cooker pack up on Christams Eve and only got it fixed because the company, Stoves, is a Scouser outfit, the swimming pool has broken on more than one occasion just before Christmas and the central heating boiler has also given up the ghost at this time of year.

So, at least a bit of variety. Our ever so helpful plumber, Keith sorted the hot water on Tuesday, and the spare part for the tap arrived about an hour after he had left. It was only the 'simple' task of undoing a grub screw and taking off the old spout, but could I do it? Not a chance. Keith was back the next day after his works night out and he could not do it either, until I had a brainwave and delved into my car boot sale box to pull out one of a number of hobby screwdriver kits. In amongst the sockets, cross thread and posidrive attachments was a T9 fitting that went into the grub screw a treat. Once removed it was evident that the screw was also ruptured which explained why it was so difficult to remove. Anyway, job done.

So all that was left was last nights drama at number two daughter house. She was off out partying and had left her keys in the inside door lock. So my trusty bent and twisted coat hanger, or ouja douja as number one grandaughter calls it, was forced into action and after half an hour or so the key was flicked out and access to the house restored. Number two daughter return later totally oblivious to the problem and resulting panic.

Only concern was that no neighbours or passing dog walkers called the police to advise of this dodgy looking character trying to gain entry to a house, through the letterbox.

Hey ho, maybe all the expletive's warned them off..........happy ho ho ho to all my readers, look out for the family Christmas stories to follow....with 18 for lunch, there are bound to be some!

Gr33n Onions

It's a slow news day today, for several reasons. First, my knee is mending well, but I am unable to take advantage of the sunny weather to get stuck into the garden. The Helleborus in particular, need some foliage to be trimmed away so they can get some more light. I also have a garden recycler to fill with debris from the pre-snow period. This will all have to wait another week or so. I am scheduled at the consultant next Monday and will hopefully get some more rehab exercises.
Second,  the two major DIY projects need to be put on hold for the same reason, and third, no sport.

As a result I have been doing some random web browsing, and found out that Venezuela pay 1p a litre for diesel for their cars, just how do they do that then? I have started to StumbleUpon stuff again too, but the program seems to have lost a lot of its appeal. There must be a better one out there, will just have to keep looking.

As mentioned a few posts ago, I am exploring green energy and sustainable heat sources solutions again. I notice the government has introduced another initiative for funding, the Green Deal. The upside is that you can get repayable grants for work which will help you out of the fuel poverty trap, and the grants stay with the house, not the individual. The down side though is that the government inspectors will tell you what you can have as part of a new heating or power initiative.

So, if you want a new boiler, after the government inspection, it might be the fifth item on their recommendations list, so you would need to have the first four actions completed before the new boiler would be funded. That may not be a viable approach for everybody.

In the meantime I am looking at air sourced heat pumps to see if technology has moved on enough to make that a cost efficient solution for our hot water needs. A rep just call in so I will now await the resulting quote.

With other building work scheduled for February and March it might fit in quite well.

Tarmac yer path guv?

We are very nearly the owners of a brand new kitchen. It has been a long journey , about two months in total, and we still await the covings from Poland, via Spain....yes really, and a new tap to replace the leaking one. Then I think we are done.

We are awaiting chairs from IKEA, they were out of stock when we ordered them, but are now available in store, but as we ordered by mail order they have to come from their main distribution centre in Rotherham. Oh well lets hope the wait is worth it.

We next need to sort out the bathrooms which are all well old and starting to develop problems. We need to sort them out before we can redecorate, much like the roof.

I would like to do a bit of work on the swimming pool as that is also in need of attention, so I dropped into CRS a pool company near Tarpoley to see if they had been the initial installation company. They were singularly unhelpful and asked me all the questions I was hoping they would have the answers to. I was firing buying signals at them all the time but they were totally oblivious to them, so have lost any chance they had of getting the refurbishing contract. Given pool maintenance companies are few and far between though, I will have to do some more research.

The highlight of the redevelopment so far though has been the work paving Dave and his mate Tony have done to turn our front path from a sloping Winter death trap into a fine set of steps which match in with the patio and house character very well....they are about to grout all the flags at the mo but are getting frustrated by the constant rain fall which is slowing them down.

I call him paving Dave as the kitchen fitters have Dave the sparks, Dave the tiles and Dave the odd job man, far too many Daves!