Category: General

So, things hae not particularly gone well at chez us. While we wait (and wait) for builders to return with quotes, made more complex by the fact that ‘green’ builders charge much more for their services, so instead we’re considering using non ‘green’ builders and they’re having the fun and games of learning about the products and tech we want to use which presumably is adding to the quote period. But since one of them is going away and promised to quote before he went away… well, we can but hope.

On the house, we’re waiting on two quotes, Timber Routes reckon roughly 20k putting them on the upper-high-side at the moment (although, to be honest, we’re still going on architects quotes). I couldn’t make head-nor-tail of the bloke who came around; first I thought he was completely negative, then he seemed a bit more positive; he kept saying “well, with no drawings it’s hard to give you an idea” which is irritating because we sent him the damn drawing. Yes, it’s a rough sketch plan, but frankly, we’re asking for a box with windows along one side and a Sedum roof. It’s not deeply complex.

Granted we’ve now moved the staircase from the left to the right, for the sake of simplicity and reducing costs, but other than that it’s pretty much as we sent it.

But mostly he spent the time explaining that we need structural drawings to meet building regs; which is true; but as I pointed out, we’d need different drawings if we get it done in high fly ash block to if we get it done in timber. Therefore we need ballpark figures to decide
1) can we afford it at all (probably not)
2) Is the ballpark timber estimate so far different from the ballpark block estimate that we have to pick on price.

And then we can pick, and then we certainly *do* want to get someone to do us proper structural drawings that can go off to building regs or the planners, if required. But until we know what we’re going to make it out of, at least in principle, and indeed whether we’re hopelessly optimistic even considering it (which I suspect we are), then we can’t really go any further.

The process is not, shall we say, filling me with joy at any rate.

Anyhow, so let’s run through the joys of the last week.

Nikki got the G-Wiz going, but we’ve found that the EMS on it is dead, or the loom, or somewhere in between. It isn’t working correctly, anyhow. And since I’m unwilling to spend more money on it, and the wee beastie’s being recalcitrant it’s now up for sale (anyone want a G-Wiz? It works-ish, but does need a new EMS). The batteries appear to be working well, though, which is good.

We got an offer for the Enfield, but with the G-Wiz dead I’m slightly inclined to hang on to the Enfield with the hope of fixing it. That’ll be new: Controller, Batteries, Wiring, Charger and a service for brakes and suspension/transmission components. Assuming the screen’s not delaminated any further it should be okay though.

I am a bit worried about the screen delaminating though. Given the way things have been going so far…

The tuner-string, who’s name escapes me, on the Bush Type 61 has snapped, which is irritating as working out the routing is a pig (thankfully, it’s the same model John has so we can copy it)…

And the Vision Plasma TV which we hoped was fixable, after an enormous struggle we (mostly John) managed to replace the module presumed to have failed (the infamous FMSD102A), sadly the set still does the awesome ‘click’ when you turn it on (as the relay clicks over) but doesn’t appear to do anything else. There is the possibility that the audio works (which the previous owner claimed) but without a remote it’s impossible to tell – and because the screen doesn’t work I can’t discern if the one-for-all remote is set to the right settings…

So that’s a bollocks.

On the plus side; Bull Motif, after some discussion have opted to replace the heated rear window in Rebecca. The only problem being that’s another 4 hours driving! If they’d have done this in the first place then it’d’ve been much easier, but I have to say that being direct and not actually asking for anything has, for once, worked. Having initially said ‘no’, they’ve discussed it with the manufacturer and decided to replace the screen. Which is good :)

So, when the builder said “I’ll individually price each bit out for you so you can see if there’s something you want to cut, and I’ll price up for Pavadentro and (some other, cheaper) insulation so you can pick” he may, in fact, have been talking out of his arse.

What he sent us in the end is a “spreadsheet” which is, actually, a list. A list with a single figure at the end (well, several figures making one moderately large price). I’m not entirely sure what good that does in terms of giving us an idea of what we should cut (clearly, most of the work, according to him).

Let’s hope the next quote is more useful.

Now, I know that despite these exciting internet enabled times in which we live, many of those among the building professions more have a website as a version of a fixed advert in the yellow pages than any kind of ongoing care about it thing, but why have an e-mail address if you’re just going to ignore it?

Also, I know that work that you actually have in your hand is much easier to concentrate on than potential future work, but if you don’t actually ever quote for potential future work, then eventually that work’s going to dry up. I’m given to understand, from the builders/plumbers/architects/etc that I’ve met that this year has not started particularly auspiciously, and that they all are in need of more work.

So why is it so damn difficult to wheedle any kind of quote out of these people? Really? Even just a ballpark figure so we know whether it’s worth continuing to get a fuller quote? Lots of companies seem to be willfully ignoring me, but then perhaps I’m just uncommonly bad at phrasing things or asking too much or providing too little information?

It’s hard to tell, the radio silence from them is often tedious.

We appear to have over 50 different sorts of tea/fruit/herbal infusion. I am considering the possibility we may have some kind of problem.

Also; the Mission 780se’s I found in Bristol are dead. This sucks as I thought I’d be listening to the dulcet tones of my record deck, and am instead still listening to the only music I have handy (best of bootie).

So, we’ve had our meeting with the architects today. And, actually, the electrician. Tomorrow’s the plumber.

And I’ve managed to drag myself up from feeling astonishingly negative. Which is funny, because the first architect seemed fairly positive. I don’t think we can do what we want at all, but he was positive about it. The next one gently broke it to us that he didn’t really think we could achieve it, at all, and suggested that we might be better off just ringing a builder and getting them around to slap a box on the back of the house – which is something we were trying to avoid.

However, I’ve found something positive – a garage that we can afford, although we may have to erect it ourselves, or tile it ourselves, or something. :-/

And if we can trim enough costs from the garage, then we might be able to achieve the ideal for the house within budget. Which’d be awesome… Although I think we might want to just get a builder to quote for it, or maybe get an architect to draw it and then let a builder ‘realise’ it… Meh. Dunno. It’s all complex in my head at the moment.

The saga of the mobile phone drags on, causing chaos and destruction around it. So I’m not willing, as I may have mentioned to have a fourth credit check before the mortgage is through, and then today when I went to get the phone line reconnected (it’s got a ‘Stop’ on it), well… the saga went like this:

– Call Be, they say BT need to reactivate the line.
– Ring BT, be informed (somewhat rudely) that Be ‘should be able to’ reactivate the line and that ‘any Broadband supplier could do it’, and that I should ring them back
– Call Be, they say they can’t reactivate it from it’s current state and that I should ring BT, or Post Office Telephones who can.
– Call BT who *won’t* reactivate a line without a 12 month contract
– Stare faintly at Virgin before realising we’d be paying nearly a third as much again (which’d give us TV as well, but we don’t watch much TV – and we could get a freeview box).
– Call the post office who say yes, we can have it and no long contract, but…

…it needs a credit check.

*sigh*

Adding insult to injury I don’t know if I’ve paid off my loan, and I don’t know this because online it shows 200 odd quid – I’m not sure if this is credit or debit, and the bank are confused and say they think it’s paid off…

So, the government are attempting to freeze nurse’s (and other healthcare workers) pay increments. On top of a pay freeze.

So, for those of you who don’t know about this, here’s a brief summary, as I understand it (which is at a pretty basic level, anyhow). Nurses (and lots of other healthcare workers) are paid a crap low wage; this is because it’s traditionally a women’s job, and women’s jobs are traditionally paid badly. If you think Nurses pay isn’t that bad, try working 3 out of 4 weekends, nights, and other shifts in such a way as to very rarely see your friends or partner, then see how much you think your life (because I have no life outside work) is worth.

I know my pay sucks because I come from the private sector where I worked about 1/4 as hard and got paid the same amount. In fact, I would be on about 2.5-3 times my current salary by now had I carried on, and I’d be working a nice 9-5 job, Monday to Friday. I’d hate my job, but I’d be paid well. Now I love (well, some of the time) my job, but I’m paid lousily.

Anyhow, to sweeten the pill a bit, each year we get an increment, until we reach a ‘gateway’. This is in return for doing lots of skill development in our copious free time. This is reflecting on our work, studying to learn extra skills, all sorts of bits and pieces to develop our portfolios. Then we reach a ‘gateway’ at which point we’re expected to produce evidence that we’ve met a specific list of skills and developed our communication skills, etc, to such a level as warrant more pay. When we get to a Gateway we present the evidence and get a bit more pay, if we’ve not got the evidence you stop getting increments.

The Government have decided that since Nurses trashed the economy, we should help fix it by having our pay frozen. Given that inflation is at about 3%, so that’s a handy pay-cut each year. Thanks for that. Now they’re trying to persuade us to accept that the agreement that our pay goes up with increasing skills should disappear. They want to fix us at a roughly 5% pay decrease for the next 2 years.

Mmm, that sounds fair. Yeah.

Of course, this is unlikely to affect morale* in an already demoralised workforce.

I’m also really glad that they let Vodafone off 6 BILLION in taxes, and are happy that those lovely bankers who have helped so many people in the UK are getting lovely bonuses. Not pissed off at all. Oh no.

* “So why bother with my portfolio then? There’s no point if I don’t get anything for it”. “Why do we do this job? Because we’re idiots”. Two nice little quotes from yesterday.

A big range cooker that’s a joy to use, good quality pans, nice cooking utensils, good quality ingredients…

Or a trangia. Take your pick.

Well, sorta. We’re in an otherwise empty house, in which the gas heaters have been condemned and disconnected (although thankfully the hot-water heater hasn’t been condemned/disconnected!), with a pile of fan/electric heaters (and our illustrious 70’s Agni), with the permission of the owner. So we’re not actually squatting, and we have some furniture here (and a fridge). We don’t, however, have a cooker… Thus yesterday I discovered the Trangia gets a bit enthusiastic when used inside. There’re no breezes to reduce the heat from the flame, so we had somewhat charcoal’d eggs for breakfast as I flailed when I realised I had nowhere to put the hot pan while I popped the regulator on… We are, thanks to the generosity of the owners not paying rent – just the utilities and council tax.

Impressively, despite not quite following how to set up the timer on the electric radiator in the lounge it managed to stay a reported 14 degrees in the lounge (where we’re sleeping) overnight. We’ve moved in the minimum amount of stuff (well, marginally more than the minimum; we put our garden chairs / table in the back room to use as a dining room-come-study.

This, however, is a reasonably comfortable place to be, the lounge is *massive* (at least to us, compared to our old address). Hopefully we’ll soon have a completion date, and we can finish this silly game :)

Today the plan is to ring Andy’s Gas (to get a new gas bottle), to ring Be Internet and see if I can hold off their fee-to-be-paid-to-rejoin thing (‘cos we had the BT line disconnected and didn’t tell them – they want £10 to reconnect if it takes more than 1 month!), ring the solicitors and poke them, and I think I might have to tell the post office we need more redirection time.

Why this has been so overcomplicated and difficult I don’t really know. I am looking forward to having our stuff again, and to feeling settled. The stress has been seriously getting to me – yesterday I had to take the day (night) off sick, because I had serious IBS symptoms and spent most of the day running to the loo. Today I’m feeling faintly tense (I don’t really know why), I suppose after the last few days I feel like I’m waiting for the next disaster to befall us. Which is unfair really, because it’s not uncopeable with, it’s all stupid little stuff, frankly, given what other people deal with. I think I just don’t like the massive level of uncertainty.

In other topics, I’m intrigued by the fact that I’m not a big fan of rap (with the exception, perhaps, of this) I really like some of the stuff in the Best of Bootie 2010 which is very definately rap based. Is it that I don’t like rap, or is it that I’ve some sort of bias against rap, and when you hide it with music I know that I actually like it. Mrr.

What I do know is that I miss the amplifier and record deck and *MUSIC*. While the MacBook is doing it’s best, it’s hardly room-filling-music. And the selection of music I have on it is ‘limited’. *Sigh*.

So, last night Kathryn got home and had a ‘Discussion’ with the Landlord in which he listed an apparent catalogue of failures. When I got home we had a similar discussion, in which I avoided shouting at him, or hurling abuse, or screaming, or anything too bad on my side.

The failures boil down to the fact he’d have liked us to put our washing up away more promptly in the morning, don’t help with the recycling, and that he feels we are insular and don’t trust him (he went into our room without asking, when we weren’t there, which was why the discussion started today, so no, now we don’t trust him), and apparently we lack ’empathy’ for his ‘needs’ with his son (which it appear mean that he can traipse through our room whenever he fancies because of his son being home and him wanting to put the Xmas decorations away yesterday).

It was one of those discussions where one side is like teflon. I accept we’ve not been in the main house that much – but we indicated early on that we were *cold* and he said he didn’t want the heating on. Our solution was to supply our own heater, with our own fuel, which made it liveable. But also that meant we spent very little time elsewhere in the house (seriously, he turned the heating off because it was +6 C outside). Which leads to us spending time in the only warm room in the house. I didn’t have a diagnosis of Asthma before I moved in, because my symptoms never lasted long enough to be noticeable. After a month of living in his house my quietly background asthma has a persistant appearance long enough to be diagnosed.

I accept that we’ve not taken the recycling to the supermarket. This is because he, at no point, indicated that he’d like us to*. Nor did he tell us where it went. In Slough it went on the kerbside, all of it (except Tetrapak cartons), in Bristol this is apparently not the case. His mum mentioned that he took some of it to a recycling place, in passing a few weeks ago when I was chatting to her. Neither I, nor Kathryn is telepathic, you actually have to tell us if you want something done, not turn up after 3 months pissed off that we didn’t mysteriously grasp your requirements.

Anyhow, it ended with me saying that I’d do my best to get us out as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, that means us being in a hotel for a few days. Whilst having a Spa Bath is nice, and the full English in the morning is convenient (especially because I don’t think I’ll be having another hot meal today), even with the fairly huge discount it’s still painfully expensive and we still don’t know when the house is going to be available to us.

I’m feeling completely lost right now. I’m meant to be working, but I keep coming back to Russ damning us, and feeling lousy. I feel like crying, moving to Bristol was meant to improve things not make them 20 times more challenging. And it scares me, because we want to move to Canada, and suddenly that seems infinitely more challenging than it did before. While I’m still pleased we’re making the move, it’s wonderful to be around friends**, at the moment life is hard and tiring and I want to cry.

* However we do empty the bins, put out the food-waste-recycling, collect the bins and put them back inside the property boundary, sweep up in the kitchen, wash the surfaces and the cooker, do his washing up, dry up his stuff, put it away…
** Nikki and Kate bloody rock.