Mostly lemon based

Category: General

  • Two days off

    So, I’ve got two days off midweek, I did this to myself so that my ‘working 50% of weekends’ actually comes out right; although I’m told some people never roster themselves to do an entire weekend. It’s okay though; I don’t want to not spend the weekend with Kathryn, but at least I get to spend evenings with her.

    At the moment I need that, because when I’m at work I don’t think about money and when I’m with Kathryn I don’t think about money. When I’m sat here on my own I think about money.

    I owe my mum 2k for Rebecca, and she’s not finished yet.
    The boiler’s another 1,300 quid (going by the first quote which seems about right based on my research), unless the second quote is mysteriously much cheaper then that’s about what I can expect.
    The new AM cd is out and it’s 6 quid, I’m winding myself up by listening to the samples on cdbaby and the two downloaded tracks from the website. It sounds good, gaaah. ;)

    I have realised that I am going to have to join a nursing agency if I’m going to have a hope in hell of ‘catching up’ on my finances. So along with the 300 quids worth of gas and electric bills (that’s half of the nearly 600 quid total); there’s a fair amount of ‘catching up’ to do. The application form is here by me, so that’s todays job, find all my training dates, find all my documentation and stick it back in the post to them.

    House work is kinda stalled, mostly because I can’t do anything much until the second quote for the boiler is in. Once that’s in and they’re booked to come in, well, then we’re into a different ball game. I should be scrubbing at tiles, but I’ve realised something; I’m exhausted. I’ve been working on the house, or working at work almost solidly for over a year. It’s occasionally okay to rest. :)

    It’d’ve been nice if it was a nice day for me to rest on, maybe get my camera out, but for the minute I’ll go with just trying not to be exhausted.

    I have to mention that we had a great weekend; Lauren and Chrissy came down and visited and we all piled into town to watch Sweeny Todd, which turned out to be very dark, gory, and really, really good. Lots of blood though. Which turned into a discussion in the car on the way back on the accuracy of film representation of blood… One of the joys of being (or knowing) a nurse…

    Lauren and Chrissy headed off the next day after a trip to Windsor, which is, it must be said, much prettier than Slough. We kinda window shopped (they actually shopped) and we generally behaved much as we always do when faced with a maze. Shortly after they headed off, as scheduled, my mother arrived. We then had a nice long evening with my mom, before I took her to the Airport in the Morning. Kathryn and I had an incredibly lazy morning and then headed off to Windsor/Eton Wick again – this time to wander down by the river (again with the pretty). There’s a bit of an oddity there, in so far as there appears to be a colony of some kind of parakeet (sp.) or parroty thing there. That’s definately *not* a native bird…

     

    Parakeet or Parrot, it's definately not a sparrow

      

    It was all very pretty though, and relaxing, and just a joy to relax and spend time out of the house with Kathryn.

     

    I think it was the Thames

     

  • It’s 2008, time to bore you all silly

    You know, for those of you who read my journal (and thank you for doing so; although I post mainly for myself, it’s nice to get the odd comment) this post may be somewhat of a repeat. But, quite frankly, I care not.

    Every year since the dawn of time, or at least since I started journaling, come sickness or wellness, drunken debauchery or sophisticated soiree, as soon as I physically can I’ll do an journal-summary of the past year. It’s something of a progress meter, a way for me to look back at where I was and where I am now and go “ah, that’s how I got here”. Ironically, the here in this case is in many respects not dissimilar from the here I was at last year. But, there are several huge and important differences, so while if you look at just the simple facts, and even some of the smaller things, my life isn’t that different; if you take in the whole and take account of the biggest and most important change in my life, my life has become a whole other kettle of fish. One I’m actively enjoying (if not right at this moment, riddled with cold as I am).

    Last year in Kate’s Life. (more…)

  • Yeah, yeah, it’s coming.

    That 2k7 review; coming. I promise.

    So I got an e-mail from Pandora Radio, I’ve not used it as much as I should’ve (in fact, I’d forgotten about it) prompting me to go look – again. And I’m reminded why I’d put it on my list to play with. It is, in fact, awesome. By giving it one recommendation it’s managed to play 2 songs by groups I’d never heard of which – if the examples played are anything like the rest of their stuff, well, I’d happily buy their album. And when I played with it a couple of days ago it played a bunch of stuff (again off one recommendation) which I happen to own but think is awesome.

    I find the record industry increasingly short sighted and at times just outright bizzare. Cutting off Pandora outside the US seems, well, like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I’ve lied and given a US zipcode, as usual, but I’m not sure if they’ll be blocking accounts or blocking by ip. If it’s the latter, well, we’ll have to be a little more inventive to continue listening; if it’s the former, then hopefully the lie of the zipcode should be enough.

    Anyhow. 

    The world has been it’s usual self, and work has been incredibly busy. The basic fact seems to be that hospitals in the UK are not big enough. We simply cannot accomodate the number of patients we have in. I remember being on the wards and being pushed to discharge patients even though I felt it was too early. And you’d see them back a few days later because they weren’t able to cope at home. I’m not sure to what extent that’s going on up on the wards, but the beds patients are going in to are still warm from the previous patient.

    And the department is barely functioning most evenings, as streams and streams of patients come in. People who need full and thorough assessment are lost in the melee, people are stressed and tired and each and every day I worry for my registration which, well, I don’t feel I’m doing my job properly. I do the most I can for each patient, but quite often that’s the minimum we can do to get them ‘treated’ and admitted. My documentation is almost non-existent; often consisting of minimal obs and signing for drugs. There just isn’t time to do anymore.

    Anyway, so that’s my world
     

  • First 2k8 post

    This should, by rights, be my review of last year. But it’s not. That is coming (so hold your metaphorical horses), but instead I bring you breaking news from the family. My mother’s got engaged.

    And a happy new year to you all.

    There endeth this broadcast.

  • The amusement value is very high :)

    Make with the clicky.

  • Sometimes getting to the fight is its own struggle

    So, this year has for the most part been a good one, my mother’s continuing depression not withstanding. But, apparently I was feeling too good about it, because it’s opted to remind me of the worst bits just as I’m leaving. I know I’m tired, and this is the worst time to deal with money issues, and with BT. BT have *again* screwed up my leaving. So, let’s run through trying to depart from BT Broadband. Infact, to avoid me going through it in an angry hissy fit when I’m doing my year review, let’s do it all now:

    – BT Got the start date wrong

    – Supplied faulty equipment that they refused to replace, including a phone which they appear to know is faulty but appear to continue to supply.

    – Promised they’d ring me, but didn’t.

    – Eventually after many broken promises supplied equipment that worked badly, but adequately for me to ‘deal with it’

    – On cancellation of the BT Broadband put a ‘Stop’ on the ADSL line making it impossible to transfer to another supplier without a long break in service despite giving me a MAC code.

    – Promised they’d ring me back, because they’re system was down, but didn’t.

    – ‘Fixed’ the ‘Stop’ by cancelling my BT Broadband cancellation and recancelling it as a ‘transfer’, supplying a new MAC code.

    – Have now billed me because “you cancelled with less than one month warning”.

    – Have now put me through to 3 separate departments, each of which goes ‘ah, not our problem’, and seem surprised that I’m becoming somewhat terse.

    – Alledge that they have refunded the incorrectly billed amount. I have had, again, to appolgise for being somewhat terse (which isn’t something I enjoy), and on this occasion have remembered to take the person’s name, so that I can quote it if there are future problems.

    Argh.

    I don’t need this right now, not when I’ve got the bill through for Rebecca. It means that at new year I’m going to have to prod one of my close friends for paperwork so we can get back money owed to us. I know it’s not a big deal for her, but for me that money was meant to pay off a big chunk of my credit card and is now going to have to pay back a big chunk of my car’s work. I hate having to push about money, but it’s been a long old time, and I’m really stressed about my finances at this point. I’m just going to have to work all the hours I can; other people manage multiple long days a week, and it’s the only way I’m going to be able to afford to do anything – I’ll try and mainly make them days when Kathryn’s on a full day at work.

    The sad thing is, this is an interim invoice. This is basically getting the structure (which I thought was what my father paid another company to repair) repaired to make her sound.

    This is nearly 2,000 pounds of remedial work that I should not have had to get done, because it wasn’t done properly the first time around. Worse than that, they’ve spent over 50 hours on her, that’s a week and a half. I’m paid approximately 1/3rd, per hour, as they charge. So I have to work 3 and a half solid weeks to make that money back – and I still won’t have a driveable car. After that the engine needs around a further grand (hopefully less) of work to get it to the state I want it to be for Canada. I wanted turreted rear shock absorbers, because the standard (reconditioned) ones wear out so quickly; and I wanted it done by experts, but I don’t think I can afford it. And having seen how bodged the rear of my car was, I’m scared for what a mess they might have made of the front. She handles well, really well for a 40 year old car. But, if they’ve bodged the alignment of the front chassis legs?

    And under all that waxoyl they sprayed around; there’s no paint. There’s probably nothing in the A posts that support the doors. Any concealed metal work I can’t assume they’ve painted, and I don’t know what to do with it. JLH’s only suggestions are way out of my budget, we’re talking into the thousands, just to rectify the damage that the other restoration place have done. How can they do that? I shall make a priority this coming year of getting some of this money back. I shall go and see solicitors; frankly, I want all the money back. Because that might be enough to strip and dip the car, and then repaint it, and if they do that then hopefully they won’t find too many other bodges lurking in the dark and we can save the metal that’s there before it rusts out completely (the depressing photoset is here).

    One thing that saddens me, also, is I suspect that the EV concept will have to be ditched, because I’m going to almost certainly have to sell Brick to get the money to pay for Rebecca. I’m not concerned about selling Brick in the long run, but it was a fun concept and I was quite looking forward to it. I still think it’s the right concept, in general terms. Classic UK cars are light and big enough to contain the batteries to carry them. The classic EV would be a great and clean way to have a Zero Emissions at Vehicle, uh, vehicle and a classic. Most of these classics were powered by engines that, by modern standards, are insanely small. The Viva weighs in at just over 3/4 ton, and yet is dragged around by an engine that produces maybe 50bhp. Simple bodies that are easily repariable give you the potential for a long life vehicle. Retrim the interior, rebuild the suspension and you’ve got yourself a new car… more or less… for far less resources than building a new car’d take.

    But I don’t have the money for that spare. I don’t have money spare. I guess 2008 is expecting me to put up a fight, and although right now I don’t feel much able to do that; I reckon that with a little love and support I’ll survive. Anyhow, I really ought to go shower, I’m on a ridiculously horrible shift today, so I’m gonna be kicking round the house a while longer.

    As another side point, the Men In Trees kick has filled up my harddisk. This is not good. I need to get that Mac up and running for the purposes of making space on the music pc to check out Gentoo.

  • I’ll be blogging this christmas…

    Well, okay… maybe just the once* (hell, I’m giving my neighbours a couple of days peace before I attack the walls and start making with the dust monster; I’ve done my ‘bit’ of DIY today – silicone sealed the last segment of the shower, and I’m off to work in a little under 2 hours).

    Happy Christmas everyone! I’m relaxing by watching more Men In Trees**. How’re you spending it?

    *Unless I decide to try and ruin Christmas for you all by describing my day at work when I get home. Stranger things have happened.

    ** Until right this second I’d not noticed how dubious that sounds. I’m watching the series Men In Trees, not actual men in trees, which’d be a little odd.

  • Expect More…

    You can probably expect more updates as Kathryn’s gone back to the states for Xmas; more on that in a bit. I thought I’d give you all a quick update on our early Solstice. So, Kathryn and I have already had our Solstice/Xmas celebration; we had a very chilled morning (and not just because the house was cold), slept in really late and when we finally got up we had a relaxed day mostly chilling. I had an argument with Windows on the lounge PC – having set up a temporary wired network I set it copying files. It did what appears to be a random selection of them, didn’t report any errors though, and foolishly I didn’t check that they’d all come across. I then deleted a bunch of stuff off the laptop and have spent several days finding all the things which went missing during the copy.Anyhow, we opened prezzies, Kathryn got me a gorgoeous Retro Computing book; arty geekery! She’s also got me something unknown, which is still floating in the aether of the Post Office. As, apparently (and frustratingly) is our VOIP adaptor. Anyhow, we then cooked a very nice (and veggie) Christmas Dinner – complete with Yorkshire pud, brussel sprouts, parsnips (although these were way underdone; in future I know to cook them for much longer), and a not very Christmassy Thanksgiving Sweet Potato Casserole (what can I say, it’s gorgeous!). It was a lovely day; despite the technology that wouldn’t play (we were meant to watch Miracle on 34th Street, but instead watched that on our boxing day). Anyhow, this is our Solstice feast:

    Yesterday was spent trying to work out why Brick’s starter motor remains somewhat recalcitrant. I’ve tried using a jumper cable as a temporary replacement earth (didn’t help), and it does seem a bit odd. Sometimes it works well, other times it’ll struggle to turn the engine over. Still, it got us to Heathrow which it turned out was a world of pain. It turned out (we forgot to check before hand) that the reservation didn’t say which terminal to go to, and unfortunately, we landed up at T2 and asked – and the chap said Terminal 1. So we parked up and we headed in to terminal 1. I’m glad I stayed with Kathryn, because frankly if you wanted a stressful pre-travel experience, terminal 1 was it. British airways, along with every other airline, appeared to have totally been overwhelmed. Yesterday’s cancellations and the (apparently normal) Xmas travelfest meant that there was a world of chaos behind those shiny doors. We found out fairly quickly that we were, in fact, in the wrong place and had to go to T4. Having got to T4, the online check-in desk failed, and we ended up queuing. Which was a shame, really; because I’d hoped to spend that last hour or so with Kathryn having a nice relaxed and over priced lunch; but instead we spent it stood in a queue. At least we got to spend it together, that’s the main thing :)

    So, she’ll be back in just under two weeks, and whilst I can’t promise anything I’m going to do my best to try and get the house heated for her return. On which basis I spent about 20 minutes today hunting round the bathroom for a 90 degree 15mm yorkshire elbow joint. A pack of them, actually. Because I was convinced I had one. Whilst I knew that I’d used up my T joints, I was certain (in my slightly hopeless memory’d way) that there was a pack of 90s lurking. It was only when I’d (in an amazingly good mood) managed to search the bathroom and I looked at the toilet cistern and remembered where the last of my 90s went, well… that I realised that I needed some new ones.

    A quick trip to B&Q was had, and lo, we have a radiator.

    I sometimes forget that it’s not the days when you achieve something visible when you’ve done a lot. Actually getting the radiator in, it took about an hour and a half; much of which was spent cleaning the floor where the radiator stands. It actually, imho, looks quite neat too. The paint is, unfortunately, still not perfect; but the back of it looks pretty good, and it’s all accessible bits that could do with more coats. So that’s okay so.

    I’m also down to one strip of silicone sealant, I’d be down to none, but I’ve obviously disturbed enough dust in there that some of it managed to coat the place I wanted to seal, so I’ve just and simply cleaned it today, tomorrow morning I’ll throw the sealant on.

    Anyhow, I don’t think I’ve shown off these yet, so here’s the shower and the toilet…

    Shower

    The toilet

    Right, so I’m going to be a bit knackered for the rest of the evening, and mehaps sit here and possibly watch a film, if I can find one I fancy, since the whole of you sorry lot aren’t online. I watched ‘Men In Trees’, S1E1 today, it looks like it’s going to be good, although I’m now missing AK as well as Kathryn. :-/

    And for some reason, Kathryn’s plane is showing up as ‘Cancelled’ on the Sea-Tac website. Grrr. Here I am being the neurotic worried partner, and it’s not helping.

    Anyhow, back to work tomorrow, so Merry Xmas everyone, have a great day :)

  • Quick update before I disappear

    So, the bathroom is now solventville, again. I put a third coat on the radiator – except for one bit which I brushed against while it was drying which means there’s one patch that now needs patching up, and my work teeshirt is well painted. I also played games with silicone sealant. Today was a ‘good’ day, assuming it actually sticks to the shwoer basin, something I’ve been having problems with. There’s two edges left to do in the shower, and the two teeny strips above the shower door.

    I’ve also made a hole in the bathroom wall, it is, as I thought Lath and Plaster – and quite easy to disassemble (and quite fun in a dusty way); I need to remove part of one of the framing pieces though and then I can – theoretically at least – run the pipework for the boiler. I’ve also gained even more understanding of the way the house is wired (oddly) – and what I thought was the ringmain entering the kitchen now appears to be a spur for one socket that obviously wasn’t there before. Still, I’ll leave that as it is – can’t touch wiring in the kitchen; I really ought to get my City and Guilds in this sh*t, because I do so much of it and its always good to have more strings to your bow.

    Sometimes dumb luck is just handy though; the builders put the soil pipe in a different place to where it was officially meant to go. A good foot or so to the right, looking from the back of the house. While this is a pain, it means that the boiler can, actually, go where I want it to. Just by sheer dumb luck they put the pipe in the wrong place, but if it hadn’t have been the boiler would have had to go somewhere else :)

    Ra.

  • So I found the positivity

    I think it was hiding under the carpet. Anyhow, positivity got me into the fracking cold bathroom, fan heater enabled and pointed at the still tacky radiator. It’s still tacky, but there was considerable fumeage as it heated up. I peeled off the masking tape to reveal the tiles which look shockingly respectable; finished cleaning the shower stall and washed the tiles around the edge, and the basin of the shower with white spirit to try and get the grease off in the hope that the silicone will stick this time. It’s stuck along the front edge, which gives me some hope. I then polished the tiles outside the shower on the corner, and all the way round where I’ve put the top bit of grout in.

    Definately coming on, it is. I did a teeny bit of scooping up the crap, then prepped one of the last areas that’s not yet grouted and….grouted it :) That took much of the afternoon; but now there’s only small areas by the sink and some of the boxing left to do, oh and the strip right by the door, because the paint wasn’t really hard enough and it needs another coat.

    Then, because I wasn’t done being productive I stripped the cupboard out of the downstairs bathroom. This cupboard hid the waterheater (well, it did until I took the door off to put the temporary link in to the upstairs bathroom, then it just surrounded the waterheater) and other than mouldering away slowly hasn’t really been doing much else. Oh, it hung the moose, too.

    Anyway, with somewhat of a battle it’s been removed. See, blokie blokie assembled it, then put it in, then tiled. Which was fine, except that I’ve run a pipe through what was an appature, and suddenly found I had a giant frame around my pipe which I couldn’t easily disassemble (or move far enough to get to the screws to disassemble it). In the end I applied brute force (and ignorance) and “it came apart in my hands, guv”. Some of the better bits have been salvaged in case they’re handy for the temporary kitchen. The rest has gone in the front garden pile of rubbish.

    After a lot of sweeping up, the bathroom downstairs actually looks lots bigger. And it’s now possible to run the heating and hot water pipes where they should go, at least it will be when I’ve taken a small chunk of wall out. Hopefully soon the radiator will dry, so I can cut the pipes and fit the damn thing, it’s terribly frustrating at the moment :-/