Some progress, at least.

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So, I’m on nights again (woo). Tonight being the first in a series of three exciting nights, and my return to work after being off sick for a day (plus being sick for a day of my days off. feh)*. So today has, as prescribed by my usual planning, been largely a day of rest. I’ve dinked on the internet (but not read my google reader, that’s vitally important, otherwise I have nothing to read on my breaks). I’ve watched MASH and yesterday’s episode of Rachel Maddow.

I also noted that one of the forms for Nova Scotia that had been sent from my Uni had gone to the wrong place. It’s not clear on the form (well, it is, but it could be much clearer; the address printed very clearly on the form is not where it’s meant to go). I sent a nice little e-mail, and got a nice little e-mail back saying it’s sorted and they’ve sent a second copy, this time to the address in the prose on the form. I have to say, much as I’m looking forward to going to Canada, I’m going to miss the effect of the Campaign for Clear English (or whatever they’re called) and their Crystal Mark on forms. UK forms actually seem much clearer. They’re still hideous, but they seem worlds more advanced than the ones I’ve seen from the US’s IRS and from both BC and NS’s nursing colleges. Whether the rest of Canada sports forms as well laid out as the UKs, or whether they match the US’s IRS forms is something that I’m forced to ponder. But anyhow, that means that I think all the paper work required is there or en-route. Which is quite exciting.

Then, I decided that I would tackle the three small jobs that I could get done without too much effort:

– Fitting the new reflector on my bike – having smashed the old one against our gate post (I’d be sad, but it was a modern knock off that I wasn’t very fond of), I’d ordered a ‘new’ one from e-bay. I’ve fitted it and it looks much more in keeping with the bike. Yay. Let’s hope I don’t smash it.

– Repairing the clothes airer, again. Our friends lent/gave us a clothes airer when we moved house, it appears to have a significant design flaw, in so far as it has the same width plastic prongs supporting it as our much, much smaller one. Thus so far 3 of the four prongs have broken. Well, the fourth has broken but it’s still holding together. I’d already repaired two and have been waiting for the other two to fail. The third one snapping in such away that that side was flopping about like a wet fish mean that for the last few days I’ve been disinclined to hang anything heavy on it, and unwilling to move it. I knocked up two more of my linkages (which are, essentially, a piece of 14mm tube with a slit in and one end crushed, with a hole through the crushed end. This is slipped over the tubing of the airer, held on with a hose clip and then replaces the plastic end of the tube) and fitted one. I’ll fit the other one when it breaks properly. The thing has now, probably, wasted more of my time and money than it’d cost to replace it, but I’m loathed to replace it when we’re planning to move soon. Also, any new one will probably be just as badly designed and implemented, so why pay when I can fix the one we’ve got with scrap.

– Put up the light and smoke alarm in the hall. I didn’t get to this. My cut off for stopping work was 3pm, and 3pm rolled up and I stopped and had my shower. Feh. I wish I had, because it’d bring the hall way that few millimeters closer to finished.

I also went to tweak our thermostat, thinking that you could set both time, and temperature. You can’t. The intention was to wind it down to only being 16°C (60°F) during the times when only one of us is likely to be home, on the basis we can then just either heat the office Kathryn’s in, or the lounge if she’s working down here or upstairs.

Unfortunately, it’s not nearly as advanced as I thought it was. It can only do one temperature, which is a bit crap. So I’ve wound it down to 17°C (62°F) as a compromise (it was on 19°C / 66°F). This is because our last gas bill was a bit of a stinker. Granted it covered several months, all of which have been pretty cold, and our usage does appear to still have been way less than a comparable house, but still. Cheaper would be nice.

And now, I’m going to laze for 45 minutes before cooking dinner…

* Incidentally, who knew they’d stopped selling ‘Kaolin and Morphine’… The look on the pharmacist’s face was classic when I took in our old bottle and asked if they had any to replace it. Oh, ah, actually they haven’t stopped selling it, contrary to our local pharmacist’s statement. Possibly it’s just because our local pharmacy dispenses methadone, but then, one would think they’d just know not to flog lots of K&M to those who got methadone…? Feh. Okay, well, next time I’m passing Boots I’ll have to get some to keep in stock.

KateWE

Kate's a human mostly built out of spite and overcoming transphobia-racism-and-other-bullshit. Although increasingly right-wing bigots would say otherwise. So she's either a human or a lizard in disguise sent to destroy all of humanity. Either way, it's all good.