Mostly lemon based

Category: General

  • You what?!

    So, I guess if I take a hot iron and a knife to this judge for being a misogynistic wanker then I only have to pay 2 grand? Because my job is *way* too busy for me to fit in community service; in fact, since I’m only paid 1/5th of the defendent’s wage can I pay 400 quid? Because if so; bargain.

  • Too lazy to think of a title

    My local council appear to have a ‘thing’ for Speedbumps; they’re scattered liberally around Slough – it’s almost like their road-roller has a dent in the wheels. Anyhow, they’ve been building some new houses on a ‘cut through’ of mine; I use it late in the evening because this particular set of traffic lights sometimes skip the Right turn cycle, which is obviously a little irritating when I’m waiting (patiently) to turn right. It also used to save me some speed bumps; 4 or 5 actually. which was quite nice. But now, presumably as part of the building of new houses agreement they’ve put in a speedbump of such ridiculous size and height that my poor MZ bottomed out it’s suspension.

    At 20 miles an hour (it’s 30 limit) the front of the bike simply went *THUNK* – quickly followed by *BANG* from the back of the bike, descending the speed bump was similarly uncomfortable. I’ve never encountered such a combination steep / tall speedbump before. The ‘zed is designed for dealing with East Germany’s Communist and knackered roads. And *it* struggles with these, that must say something bad.

    I hate speedbumps anyway; I find them desperately annoying because most of them don’t limit you to the speed limit. The lumps in a 30 area usually require you to do 20 to get over them comfortably. In which case they should be honest and (try to) lower the speedlimit, rather than the dishonest act of putting in bumps but leaving a notional speed limit which you can’t safely do.

    Anyway, that rant over and done with, here’s another; why – why when it says two lanes are closed on the motorway, and you get a mile’s warning, and then the repetitive get-in-lane type signs start at 600 yards do dumb-ass people decide that they’ll try and squeeze in at the last second. Don’t they get that they cause the traffic jams. They’re *why* the traffic flow is so lousy through the road works. Despite there being all of maybe 20 cars going through the set of roadworks on my way home it involved slowing to less than 10mph and dropping into first gear because these moron people can’t merge earlier. *sigh*.

    The ranting is, of course, because it rained on the way home. Raining on the way home is unacceptable; not as bad as raining on the way to work…

    While I was riding though, I thought things through, as I’m wont to do. I think I ought to maybe accept that my bike needs to be fixed, and also that I don’t have the time or energy to look at it at the moment. I’ve tried to fix the ‘top-speed-is-50mph’ issue before, and clearly it needs more effort. When the car’s back sorted I may have to accept that it’s time for the bike to go be fixed. Still, I can always see if Kathryn fancies a trip into London (of course, once there, if you drop of your bike somewhere there is the issue of what to do with bike gear…oh, and I no longer have spare bike gear; see, I should have bought the stuff at lidl).

    Today’s work was odd; having spent a very relaxed morning reading Claire McNab / The Wombat Strategy – which turned out to be annoyingly good – at least, by my limited standards. I’ve long suspected that as with films I’m not actually terribly picky about my reading – I can easily loose myself in an adequate book. But i really did end up enjoying this one, so I think it’s actually pretty good. Unfortunately there’s 4 books in the series, which I get to add to the list of books that I need to read; I’ve finally picked up the final book in the Kushiel trilogy; I’ve got the other two Thursday Next books and on top of this (and perhaps more importantly, really) I really need to start learning about A&E stuff.

    Some days it just proves how little I know. And I find myself thinking ‘what the hell am I doing here?! I don’t know enough to do this!’ which is pretty much how I felt a lot of today. But the guy got treated – and was improving – despite his complete unhelpfulness. I hope he’s okay; although after 4 hours I was very glad to be handing him over to the ward.

  • There goes plan A

    So, this day had a plan:

    – Buy petrol, drive to work.
    – Work.
    – Home.
    – Bank (more financial sorting, there is definite positive monetary direction happening)
    – Home, sort paperwork
    – Dinner
    – Continue to sort paperwork
    – Sleep

    That *was* plan A. Plan B, which was apparently what the world had in mind was:

    – Go out, start car, put foot on clutch, have foot go straight to floor. Panic, briefly, run into the house, grab bike gear, beg and plead bike to start (it does, impressively only on 3rd try; especially given it’s not been ridden for (over 2) months), ride to work.
    – Work.
    – Get changed, ride bike home
    – Home, top up oil on bike.
    – Bank (good, but taking longer than expected)
    – Home, foof with car for an hour before realising that either (a) a bit of the clutch cable retaining mechanism has gone walkies between here and Place-of-Work or (b) the hole it’s meant to sit in has enlarged slowly, allowing the cable to slide through it.
    – Ring garage, arrange for them to collect the car tomorrow (though they can’t look at it ’til friday).
    – Scoop up paperwork and attempt to sort it…
    – Decide I am owed takeaway by the world, seeing as there’s no food in the house and I now have no car to go and get food in :(

  • Order of business

    So, the part I need from B&Q won’t be in until the 23rd. This is frustrating; however less frustrating because there’s still a billion other jobs that need doing… Having spent some time talking with Kathryn about it I think we need an ‘order of business’ – otherwise we’re not going to be able to progress on the house in a sensible way.

    This post is therefore dull and mostly for me (or us :) ).

    So; I think the plan goes thus:

    Prior to her arrival, *’d items are things I’d like to do…

    – Finish CD organisation.
    – Unpack Kathryn’s books.
    – Remove centre shelf from cupboard, allowing Kathryn’s light to stand on lower shelf.
    – Sort my clothes and clear drawers full of crud.
    – Unpack Kathryn’s clothes.
    – Sort & file paperwork. Write missing letter to NIContribs.
    – Continue work on bathroom (not in order): Mount wood for cistern, Fix sink to wall, Fix toilet to floor, Paint*, Clean floor of excess grout, Commence tiling*, Finish waste water plumbing, Paint bath feet, Fit shower*, Fit bath*, Fit cistern*, Trim base of door and refit*, Sort out lighting for shower*.

    Post her arrival:
    – Complete bathroom.
    – Complete upstairs heating plumbing (mount radiators on walls, connect up).
    – Commence kitchen works (In order, based on current thoughts): Lay cable for new sockets, fit new consumer unit, add plumbing for dishwasher, Replaster those areas, Paint internal (lounge / kitchen dividing wall) main wall (with fridge against it atm) and corner up to window, buy cupoards, fit those cupboards, remove internal kitchen / bathroom dividing wall (as far as possible) and have gas engineer come and fit gas pipes for cooker and also fit boiler [start using bathroom upstairs], remove rest of downstairs bathroom (take back as far as possible, and concrete up rest of old soil pipe), builder required to fit new french windows and brick up old door way, replaster and make good ceiling, paint ceiling and then paint remaining walls, fit new ceiling lights, tile, floor.
    – Back bedroom: New sockets, plaster, sand and paint.
    – Move into back bedroom; Front bedroom (strip wallpaper, etc)
    – Garden!

    …and we’re done. No problems ;-)
    It’s a bit scary when I look at it like that.

  • Home again, home again, tra la la

    I just spent a fantastic weekend in Norwich; well, okay, 2 days. You have to remember that as a shift worker, my ‘weekend’ falls when my days off do, and not so much when it’s actually the weekend.

    I miss Kathryn when I’m not with her; and so even 2 days dropped into a 3 week stretch is a joy. We had a great time watching films (Accepted – surprisingly good, and great fun; The Science of Sleep – strange, good – but not engagingly brilliant, more good in an abstract way). We wandered around Norwich seeing bits which aren’t so lovely, and bits which are pleasant (and were quite definately not lost ;) ). And we went up to the beach at Sea Palling with her friends from work – and built a sand castle (and watched it destroyed by the sea), ate BBQ food and generally had a thoroughly wonderful time.

    I miss having the sea nearby… I’d not realised how attached I was to it.

    Anyhow, that was my weekend; now I’m home, missing Kathryn, thinking about 2 (and a bit) weeks from now when she’ll be moving in, and contemplating unpacking her books (some of which I brought back, for the sake of convenience), sorting out the drawers and unpacking some of her clothes; and trying to coax her i-home into working.

    *smiles*

    I’m really rather looking forward to her moving in :)

  • Nerves…

    Actually, for once this isn’t a post about Kathryn moving in. Things are progressing nicely in that direction – I have the world’s worst hanging rail which should mean that there’s lots of drawer-space available. I should be able to commence tidying soon; and through an aggressive ‘interesting’ policy, I think I’ll be able to squeeze the CDs that are going ‘in the box’, in the box.

    So, that only leaves getting the plumbing working – so that we can switch to the upstairs bathroom asap. Which isn’t a huge job, it’s just a difficult and complex one. Anyone got any tips for cleaning up Victorian radiators? And connecting them? I think it’s got a 1″ pipe connection on it, but I’ve never tried to use one like the one it’s got, so I may go to the plumbing place and say ‘hey, I’ve got one of these – what do I connect it with?’ (taking a photo with me, as opposed to say, the radiator, on the basis that Kathryn, Brick and my back would be out to kill me if I decided to ‘nip’ to the plumb place with that radiator).

    No, the nerves have come because some of my very lovely friends have asked me to DJ at their wedding. I’ve not DJ’d since, uh, hrm, 1999/2000, and feel a little out of practice. I mean, I’ve done some party playlists; but not actually one-disk-after-another DJd. So it’s a trifle scaryfying. I shall have to get some practice in before hand, but I am feeling better about it having been sat here playing track-after-track and starting to get that ‘this track goes next’ feeling again. It comes back, it’s like when I’m making party playlists; I guess I DJ to myself there, playing one track and going ‘yes, now this one’, then skipping most of the way through it and going ‘ah, yes, this one next’…

    Anyhow, I guess I better get washed; things to do, people to save… ;)

  • Both legs…in plaster.

    So today I ended up with both legs in plaster. I am not joking. Both of ’em. Makes moving around quite inconvenient. Fortunately it was only because I was doing the A&E plastering course; and thus spent a day plastering bits of my colleagues. Tomorrow is the second day and I’m nervously looking forward to plastering arms.

    I also had a plan; I thought I’d finally connect up my waste water plumbing, it is but one pipe afterall. This, however, failed to take account of the fact that B&Q, nutcase people that they are stock the part I need in 32, 34, 36 and 50 mm (in grey, the colour of my soil pipe) or in 40 and 50mm in black. I need 40. I am not going to put up with it being black because it really would look stupid. So.. tomorrow I shall be heading up to Wickes and see if they stock it.

    That however zapped the last of my enthusiasm. One interesting thing though; I turned over the minor’s engine today, and I suspect I have some idea why it’s sick. There’s no-where near the compression there used to be when I first got it. Uh, so, yes.

  • Holiday, Part 2; Photos and House, part whatever.

    So, yeah. I promised I’d write something about this. Anyhow, after the lakedistrict we headed down to Bristol. I have several fantastic friends in Bristol who I’m very bad at getting down to see – and also I wanted Kathryn to meet more of my friends. So, a plan was hatched (thanks to LizBuf who pointed out that the harbour festival was occurring) and we headed on down to the land of Bristol on the Friday night before all piling into Kate’s Prius for a journey to the city centre.

    On the way in we caught up with a little abandonment; the whole of that bit of the harbour is redevelopment prone – especially now they’re well underway with the waterfront developments further up. So the previously grotty and interesting end of the town is starting to be gentrified; but there’s still some interesting bits of fallingdownness. Impressively I largely failed to get any shots of the actual harbour festival; but some interesting shots of friends and some interesting shots of abandoned boats, or bits of ’em. Anyhow, shots of the weekend are located here…

    Next up we have another photoset; this is shots taken from London; mostly around Bankside powerstation / The Tate Modern. I’ve always meant to go to Tate Modern, and actually I still need to go, because we only really had time to look around an exhibit about urban life (which was ace) and then while Kathryn was busy I spent most of my London afternoon taking pictures outside or lounging on the grass, then we headed to St Pauls, and then off to Gay’s the Word (where I bought two books, despite knowing I shouldn’t, but one of them is called ‘The Wombat Strategy’ and therefore needed to come home with me). On my way home that evening I was treated to a gorgeous synchonised flying display from the local bird population. It was just *stunning*. Sadly the batteries on my camera were somewhere beyond flat, and lurking around in the micron thick range; I managed with much shuffling of batteries to loose two shots; one of which was in focus. It was just a glorious, glorious sunset and the birds were flocking and flying and… I just stood and watched for ages. So that photoset is here…

    And finally, in the name of updating you all; the fruits of mine and Kathryn’s labour. This is the bathroom as of today.

  • Building the future

    So, Kathryn came down 2 days ago; and we spent some time working on the bathroom. It’s cool; because thanks to the amount of progress we made I now have a faint hope that the bathroom will actually be finished by the time she moves in. Not actually working; but finished. Which is a step forward of awesome magnitude.

    In the mean time there’s quite a few jobs that still need doing. While Kathryn did nearly all of the hard bit (the careful measuring and locating on the wall bit) of putting up the boxing at the ‘bath’ end of the bathroom, there’s a whole other (rather simpler, but still) wall which needs doing, and there’s then the tile-a-thon. I realised that I was being a dizzy mare and also need to put the sink brackets up before the tiles. While I’m not great at cutting tiles, doing it the other way round is liable to lead to cracked tiles.

    The toilet has holes ready and waiting for the screws that’ll be holding it down now, thanks to a new very sharp drill bit. I’m really quite excited. It’s all heading towards the 4th, when Kathryn will be moving in. I’m trying to sort out my finances a bit before I do that; I went to the bank today for an account review (which is where they generally try and sell you stuff), the woman I talked to was very friendly, and then utterly appalled when she learned how much I’m paid. Perhaps I should print my pay per hour, and then put that up on a poster with ‘are nurses worth more than this?’. Heh.

    Kathryn moving down is alternately very exciting and rather scary. I love her, that much is very simple, and I’m very excited that she’s moving in. But we’ve spent only 10 days together at our longest, and we’ve never yet had an argument. But, I hope (and believe) that anything that crops up we can work through; and I ended up rambling on about her at great length to the financial advisor person; poor soul; who commented on how happy I seemed to be. Which is true; I am ridiculously happy. And I hope to keep it that way.
    Anyhow, plan for today is continue the wood-working fest; maybe collect the bath foot, if they’ve actually got around to recasting it, and paint the walls. I do need to check that there’s nothing I need to ‘do’ for the plaster weekend (I’m learning to plaster limbs this weekend), at least, nothing beforehand. So, uh, that’s my day.

  • lather, rinse, repeat.

    Mondays are always awful, monday lates, in particular are somewhat like drawing teeth. Or being dropped in a bucket full of angry piranhas… the funny thing is; today I encountered conditions I know nothing about; I was run off my feet, and barely got a chance to see anything, but…

    …it was so much better. What wasn’t better was the two exceedingly selfish patients who both absconded. This meant that instead of me doing nursing work for an hour I spent an hour tracking one of them down and the other got reported to the police. I could have been doing something *useful* in that hour. But no.

    I have however come home to my BT Homehub being it’s usual completely shit self. It’s now decided that the PC downstairs is beyond redemption and shall not be allowed to connect under any circumstances whatsoever. *sighs*

    I may set it to use static IP addresses because clearly it’s DHCP server is as effective the rest of the box. Bloody pile of crap. Anyway. I’ll return you now to your normal scheduled programming.