Mostly lemon based

Category: House

  • Productivity gains

    So, today I’ve been a busy little Kate (as can be deduced from the 3 attempts it took me to spell ‘busy’) and am currently in an exhausted little heap at the end of the cofa listening to KK* and drinking ice-tea (well, I’m out of fruit juice; oh, and milk…and cereal…I think I need to go shopping tomorrow).

    Anyhow, this morning I woke up, flicked on the waterheater and bid on ebay. I munched toast, downloaded some shows, and drank my honeybush tea (‘cos I had no milk). Having cleansed myself utilising the warmish water, the hotwater heater was switched off, I dressed, hung out the laundry, drove 40 miles to my mum’s house. We then hopped in Brick (mum and I) and headed to my mum’s allotment; her little shed there had partially lost it’s roof in the storms and so I stripped off the felt, and re-roofed there and then. Not the best quality roofing job in the world, but it should do for a few more years.

    My mum strimmed the allotment a bit; and I did a teeny bit (the battery powered strimmer gave up soon after I took it) and we then headed…to Hungerford. It’s my little (other) Nephew’s birthday in a few days time. I’ve remembered, several times, that I needed to get prezzies. Unfortunately at times like, uh, now. When it’s too late to actually buy them. Anyhow, we managed to find appropriate gifts and card and then piled back into Brick and drove home.

    Having got back to my mom’s I faffed with some plants (involving being up a ladder and extracting dead Clematis (?) from my mum’s Wisteria. Istr cutting and strimming the grass came next. And then packing the bike, and some tools into the car; see this morning in the post came my shiny shiny electronic ignition.

    So I then came home and fitted the ignition. There was a brief hiatus when I realised that I didn’t have a multimeter, amazingly my multimeter has managed to remain in my mum’s garage, I thought I’d brought my electronics toolkit with me, but no. I also didn’t have any connectors with me which has meant that the fitting’s been a little less neat than normal. And the multimeter? I ended up buying an overpriced, overpackaged Gunson’s one. But hey, I blew up my other digital one with a cunning ‘ah, let’s measure volts with it connected to the unfused 10A range’ plan (the rest of the meter still works though…).

    Anyway, fitting complete we went out for a test run and all seems well at the moment.

    I’ll have a nose tomorrow and top up the oil, and the coolant I expect. I think I should make a list of jobs I need to do in my time off, otherwise I’ll forget things. Anyhow, I am now exhausted. Oooh, and there’s Sheridan’s in the larder. What a good idea.

    * A CD Kathryn made me, which is made of awesome (although has the unfortunate side effect of making me miss her more (something I’d previously not considered possible)).

  • Gardening…virtually

    So, I realised that even if the building work is progressing painfully slowly, which it may not be, but *if* it is, then there is one area I can work on, which is the garden; the garden can be done regardless of other…things. So; with that in mind I’ve been planning, thinking, and hurling bricks around with wild abandon. Well, maybe not wild abandon, but some vigour.

    I came up with this:

    The Flickr thing has notes, but essentially the upper left grassy bit stays grassy and mehaps has a twirly rotory dry-ee thing on it. The lower bit is kind of ‘home of the plants’, and suchlike. Maybe with a rockery or something. I dunno, I’ll let my mum decide that :-)

    The path is an as-cheap-as-I-can-make-it gravel affair with (probably) some plastic underneath to stop weed penetration.

    And that brown bit? That’s meant to signify decking. Whilst decking may wander in and out of favour, and everyone and their chicken has decking these days, I’ve got a huge-bloody-lump-of-concrete which exists outside my house, and which cannot be moved. So I’m thinking covering it up with some decking would be a marvellous idea.

  • Help!

    So, assuming my ‘holiday’ still stands, then in 2 weeks time, I’ve got a week off. My plan, such as it was, was to spend 2 weeks doing car and house things. Now I’m not sure that the holiday will still stand as I’ve had some time off before, and I’m not sure if I’ve now got ‘excessive’ time off since I’m leaving in one month. But, if it does *and* I can get my builder in here to do the joists upstairs, would anyone be able to help on any of the days, with potentially:

    – Collecting a bath and getting it up the stairs?
    – Collecting a shed and putting it up in the garden?

    My real hope is that the bathroom will be ready, and that I can get a shed and a bath, hire a van and collect ’em both on one day…

    I’ve been nosing at e-bay and both are the sorts of big jobs for which I’ll need help; and so I’d be really, incredibly greatful if any of my friends are able to assist. I’d buy you dinner, ‘n all :-)

    Of course, this may all disappear out the window as I may not have the time off…

  • Stoopid house

    So, I’ve been starting to try to obtain bits for my bathroom, and attempting to win (off e-bay) a variety of kitchen/house bits (including a boiler; in hopes of having hot water / heating in time for the summer ;-) ). At any rate, I’ve also been starting to plan my shower, and I’ve discovered what I have to call ‘a problem’.

    It turns out the gap where I’m intending to put my shower is not, as I’d hoped, 1200+mm, which is a standard shower size. No, it’s 1180mm, which is not. 1100 is an uncommon – but available size. Depressingly though, you can’t get cast stone-esq shower bases in 1100 mm. And the cheapy resin base ones? They’re actually more expensive than the faux cast stone ones in 1200mm.

    And shower doors? almost twice as expensive. There’s no way I could shimmy an extra 20mm out of it – it being wall, ‘n’ all. So I quietly curse the fact that my house (checking, it appears to be a nonsensical 46.5″, so it’s a size that makes no sense in any form of measurement).

    Gaaah.

  • Help, the gardens are overun with weeds…

    So, in an attempt to reduce the chaos, prevent potential moping, and generally keep myself occupied I prep’d the bike for it’s MOT. Which went slightly less well than I’d hoped. The front brake light switch has, as usual, stopped working. I should’ve thought of this and ordered one in advance. I’m going to hope he’ll let me promise to replace it. I’ve sprayed it with lots of contact cleaner come lubricant and wiggled it lots, I’m hoping that it might work on the day.

    Also, having checked, mirrors are not part of the MOT test requirements. They are part of construction and use, but really mine were useless anyhow. So I’ve taken ’em both off, because one of them needs helicoiling in place, and I don’t have a helicoiling device. I do want them back on, simply because it’s nice to know what’s behind you, but I’m not desparately concerned. I am a bit peeved by the brake light switch though. I only did that for last year’s MOT. It’s only a couple of quid, but still. Aaanyhow, having pulled the iris(es?) out of the bike I then proceeded to do various dances with cars and bikes; which entailed me nearly running the minor into the Viva – having forgotten that the minor’s handbrake is fairly marginal. That would have made a great insurance claim…. Still, I managed to shuffle ’em round so that the bike should be able to be extracted and ridden on Monday.

    All of this leads up to the gardens. See, I’ve really been a bit unsure as to what to do with the garden(s). My mum, I’d decided, would be set loose on the back one, but she wants some rough idea of what I want. I have very rough ideas, but I’m not sure that they’ll work, as such. Anyhow, so I’ve strimmed the weedygrassland in the front garden down to a more manageable length…

    Now, this has to serve several purposes, ideally. Looking pretty is but one component of the plans for the front garden. I’m thinking that I might need some sort of curvy mud retaining wall, and a raised section; and then slop concrete in the other section. This would allow me to have a mini-bike-driveway on the right, at the front, and retain some garden, and maybe make it tidier…

    My intial thoughts are something like this:

    They grey’s the current drive way, the green with the orangey border is my rough outline of the walled / raised bed. I’m not thinking hugely raised, like 2, maybe three layers of brick? Something like that. The curves didn’t quite come out the way I wanted and the scale’s a bit off I think. Still, that’s my general idea :-)

    The back garden’s more of a problem:

    See, I have kind of resigned myself to the fact that the shed is going to have to face the way it is; and to the fact that I’ll probably have to build my own shed up from parts (incidentally, if anyone knows anywhere round Slough where I can pick up scrap wood, I’ve tried Freecycle and unlike Bristol freecycle it’s a bit like calling to a void, all I ever get back is my own echo) and am kind of envisaging stripping down the shed I’ve got, loosing it’s wood-wormey wood, but salvaging the sheet steel and using that to make up the back and the side that you can’t see; then using wood to make up the side you can see and the front. And then planking (maybe ex-pallet?) for the roof? (And then roof felt!).

    The idea was, you see, to make myself some kind of workshop space in which I could strip down the spare engine, but I’m starting to wonder if I’m really going to ever have time to make that an achieveable objective.  Anyhow, so the general idea was to move the shed back, so that it occupies that dubious little gap at the back, almost flush with the garages behind, and also uses up that corner of the garden which is currently given over to a 1970s front door, a tree and a pile of rubbish. *But*, that photo fails to show what it was meant to which is that the concrete is about 15cm* higher behind the shed than in front which I suspect, being lazy, means I’d have to raise the floor of the shed, and maybe put a dinky little step outside it. I don’t think I can easily remove that concrete, what with it being up against a big garage wall… which doesn’t belong to me (annoyingly).

    Aaaanyhow, so I also need to get rid of that concrete centre path. Now, see, various of my friends offered to help with my house before I moved in – so I may be taking them up on this offer, in a summer-dig-kate’s-garden and remove-the-fracking-ugly-path extravaganza – possibly to include a ‘lay the new path and lay out the flowerbeds, oh, and maybe a bit of decking’d be nice party… Heh.

    At least, that would be *nice*; but I’d settle for some help removing the path :-)

    I may also be bringing friends in for a cupboard mounting party, depending on how the kitchen goes. Still no quote from my builder, although they’ve now finished off the plastering (better’n gimp boy in the lounge, not as good as the really good plasterer though). So maybe soon work can commence on the bathroom. Which’d be nice. Then work can commence on removing the old bathroom and finishing off the kitchen. Which’d be nice. :-)

    • Since the EU have sadly decided to allow Britain to keep being insanely dumb about measurements, I’m instigating a new policy of endeavouring (much more strongly) to use metric measures.

  • Building, Norwich and so on…

    So, building work progresses apace; well, a-limp is probably more accurate; however there are distinct progress signs, and a feeling of positivity descended (until today when I realised I’d have to pay to get someone to wire the kitchen, which is going to be ‘spensive, ‘cos I suspect I need an RCD unit instead of my current ‘fuse box’). At any rate there is progress, at one point the kitchen was a place of great danger... but now there’s a wall and in fact, plaster. I’m waiting on a ceiling though.

    So anyway, that’s the building work news. I do like to keep you all updated.

    In other news, I spent a fantastic 2 days up in the land of Norwich – relaxing and generally having an awfully good time with Kathryn. I headed up on Friday, and… well, actually Kathryn posted about it here – it seems silly for me to post the same stuff again. But what I will do is share a few pictures with you…

    While we were walking back from Norwich, me with my newly shorn hair, I saw this window. I’m sure I’ve seen it, and possibly even thought it was pretty before, but I actually (in a real change from the norm) took my camera with me…

    It’s such a beautiful window despite the decay…

    And then I’ve finally got some nice shots of Kathryn who amazingly didn’t notice the camera in time to stop smiling…twice.

    That second one, that’s a shot of her taking pictures of an abandoned shopping trolley….through an abandoned shopping trolley.

    And finally, I thought it was about time I had a new picture of myself, it’s not like I’m that narcissistic, so you don’t often get to see me…so, um, yeah, anyhow – it’s my Journal, why’m I justifying it?! Anyhow, this is me in the Sainsbury Centre for the Arts (or some approximation of that name).

    Of course, the interesting thing about that picture, apart from looking like some gloriously 1970’s white shiny plastic future is that it’s actually shot in the toilet. Yes. But I was so enamoured with the sparse, utilitarian whiteness of it, but at the same time it’s faint feelings of futuristic luxury that I had to get a shot.

    We were there to look at the photography exhibition (from the V&A) and also to nose at the art nouveau display. Both were interesting, whilst the photography exhibit – a lot of the images were excellent – as you’d expect, but failed to speak to me in any meaningful way. At the same time, there were some really fantastic images which were just incredible. Inspiring…

    The art nouveau display was also interesting, I’ve always struggled with art nouveau, because I adore some components, and other bits really just do nothing for me. Again, like the photography exhibit there was some stuff which was incredible, and again some stuff which failed to reach me at all. What did reach me though, was watching one of the staff discussing a tattoo – it’s interesting to hear people who really know about art discussing tattoos, reminds you that they are an art form in and of themselves.

    Anyhow, after a cream tea (yum, and surprisingly reasonably priced, although why I say it’s a surprise when I’m in a place that’s let me view lots of art for free….not sure) we headed back through the rain, and Brick declared he wasn’t going anywhere. Now I know I wanted to stay there with Kathryn, but this did lead me to have a stressed few minutes. See, the screw that holds the points in place, it’s stripped of thread so only kinda loosely holds them. So the timing wanders slightly – which hasn’t really been an issue once the car was running, but has been a little bit of an issue when starting. Thankfully I’d got a receipt in the car to use as a feeler for the gap, and having adjusted it he started quickly enough. I’ve just disassembled the points, slapped some threadlock on the base and put them back together – hopefully that’ll hold it okay until I get the electronic ignition from the Viva club bloke.

    On the way to the photo exhibit we ran into a little abandonment, shots of which are here.
    In other positive but unrelated news, my tyre arrived today for the ‘zedly Cherry, so I shall (on Thursday, I hope) disassemble the wheel and run it down to my local tyre place. All being well, we could be MOT’d and back on the road by the end of the week.

  • Answerphones…

    I have 5 things to do this morning, well, 6 since one got split into two separate tasks by me forgetting to do part of it. Of these 2 require speaking to other people on a telephonic device. Both of these people appear to have answerphones. Answerphones which are on whenever I ring – my timing must suck. *whimpers*.

    And no one’s online to tolerate my whining. It’s no good at all really.

    I can’t concentrate on anything, I’m trying to organise extra work through NHS-P, who’s onsite person never returns my calls (seriously I’ve made about 10 and left messages most times and I *never* get called back), and I’m also trying to organise an ‘informal visit’ to St Fred’s Hospital for the Clinically Unwell where my interview is – made harder by the fact I’m working all the days between now and then.

    I had more to say, but it’s wandered off somewhere. Oh, yes, I may be able to do my bathroom rather cheaper than I thought – which is double-plus good really. Uh, yeah. ‘s all.

  • Floating courtesy of the magic pixies

    So, I’ve had an interesting couple of days. Last night, because our ward, indeed a large chunk of Saint Bob’s Hospital  is closed due to an outbreak of diarrhoea, our ward was strangely, well, quiet. Empty beds and because we’re good and also lucky, our ward appeared to have escaped very lightly – we had very few cases of diarrhoea; so we had what has got to be the very first properly staffed – or at least appropriate staff-patient ratio’d shift I’ve ever had.

    It was pleasant. I came home and I didn’t hurt, I wasn’t exhausted, I was sleepy and tired, but not exhausted. I got up this morning to go to work, and y’know what, I didn’t struggle to get up, I didn’t hurt as I got in the shower, and I drove to work in a cheery mood.

    Sadly, all things come to an end and our ward is now filling up. But hey, 2 days of joy – I know it’s wrong of me to have enjoyed the time while other wards struggled – but to be able to give *really good care* to patients; to check them properly, to wash them slowly and take time over it. To wash between people’s toes, to remove everyone’s anti-embolism stockings and wash their feet.

    To shave all the male patients who wanted it… To actually know what’s going on with patients, and be able to answer questions and hand over accurately to the late staff… Oh, and to just spend some time talking to the patients. To do my job properly, the way I’d like to, just for 2 days.

    Anyhow, enough dwelling, some things were less fun today. I realised, like I said that I ordered the wrong size tyre. So I rang up Berkshire Motorcycle Centre and said ‘Hi, look, I ordered a tyre on Saturday…’ [they cut me off] ‘Yes, it’s not arrived yet, it should be in tomorrow’.

    To which I said ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been astonishingly silly, and ordered the wrong tyre’ or polite words to that effect. Their response was “well, it’s yours now. You have to pay for it”.

    Uh, no, actually I don’t. Not legally, no. Not in any sense of the word. It’s not even arrived. In the end I argued my side and the guy was incredibly rude and then told me that he wasn’t interested in my custom and hung up. So, I recommend not going to Berkshire M/C Centre in Slough.

    At any rate, I’ve ordered my tyre from an online tyre place, and I’ll get someone local to fit it – my local tyre place probably.

    And in better news; my builder came! He came and built stuff. Well, technically, he demolished stuff, and then built stuff. And discovered that my house has had some half-assed-botch jobs done on it – it currently has two joists which while they are fixed (one presumes) at one end, are floating – held in place by the floorboards – he’s planning to put joist hangers in (which should have been done a when the chimney breast was originally modified).

    That and the original chimney is supported on two ‘tie in’ bricks. Uh, only one of them seems to only have maybe 1/5th it’s length in the wall it’s tied in to. It’s currently propped up with a bit of wood, a bit of brick, and a screw driver. The wall also appears to have been built from random brick; the new one’s not exactly any prize – being a mixture of block work and brick – and it’s imperial brick and metric blockwork – and they don’t tie together terribly neatly, but he is trying to keep materials costs down for me – and it’ll all be behind plaster.

    There would be pictures, but the CF card reader is on my desk by the Mac. And the mac is sat above the floaty joisted floorboards.

    Whilst they’re no more unsafe than they were yesterday, I don’t *particularly* want to tread on them. So you’ll have to be waiting for them.

  • …I blame money.

    So, last year I went through a fair struggle but this whole house / money / job game has got me stressed. Perhaps that’s why I’m dreaming – and remembering snippets – because there’s something to worry about so I’m dreaming. I feel like my body is falling apart – despite me living better (although no real exercise, I need to do something about that); and eating better, I’m sick – and I’ve been sick with this sore throat for nearly a week now. In fact, it’ll be a week tomorrow. And there’s no sign of improvement, I just feel as bad as I did the first day I got it.

    I get frustrated at my body at times like this – wanting it to be better, cursing my immune system for not kicking out the invader. Which is revoltingly unfair of me, but after experiencing a year of not getting unwell; well; this repetitive sickness is getting to me.

    Ironically, so far this year my hayfever’s remained mild – mild enough that I debate not taking the tablets – I may have mentioned I went for 4 days without; but the occasional sneezing fits on top of the headache and sore throat, that was a bit much.

    I’ve tried to be as gentle with myself as I could whilst still preparing for the builder; I split up the work over several days; and I’m glad I have. I do still need to do the washing up and move the washing machine, but that’s it now. I’ve taken the recycling to be recycled, I’ve dried laundry on the line (a bit at a time, ‘cos it’s a bit stretchier than perhaps you’d expect, mind it is a *long* run) with no supports, I’ve cleared the kitchen door, and uh, I’ve watched 3 episodes of Hustle (how come they’re getting Hustle in the US before we get it here; it’s *our* programme. Since when did the BBC start showing shows in the US before here?!, huh?). I also watched Dr Strangelove, which I still think is a fantastic film.

    I gargled with salt water (so much I actually made myself sick :( ), and with TCP (which tastes revolting, incidentally). And I drunk so much to try and soothe my throat that I started to feel unwell.

    I don’t really know what to do; I want rid of this but I’ve got work tomorrow and it’s going to get worse.

    Oh, and I ordered the wrong size tyre for my bike, so I get to make a very embarrassed phone call tomorrow…. Bah.

  • I’ve nearly not done anything today

    I tried, I really tried – and frankly the period of time when my body was informing me that I was freezing cold, followed by the later period where my body was telling me that I was insanely hot; yeah, they made me think I shouldn’t really do heavy lifting and working.

    So I’ve mostly sat around, slept, kinda stared faintly at stuff on the laptop; listened to more WW..Dtm. I’ve also done some useful things – e-mailed a bloke about a potential interior for the Viva (I did say I’d tidy him up); and paid for the electronic ignition – it doesn’t look like my mileage is likely to drop in the near future; and the Viva needed new points 3,000 miles ago. So, yeah, let’s get that in and in, hopefully I’ll get slightly better starting with it :-)

    I also paid off one card, the other one though is starting to scare me as it’s getting out of hand. I need to get some bank work sorted, quite urgently. All I can do this month is pay off the minimum. Last month I paid off a lot less than I put on it. I’ve kind of accepted that there’s jobs which I’m going to have to do, but it’s somewhat scary at the moment.

    On the plus side, my friend Dave reckons the ‘zed can be MOT’d sans wingmirrors; I can’t *see* anything about wing mirrors in the MOT testing manual. So anyway, that would be good. Tyre, MOT and Tax (since I’ve accidentally renewed my insurance) and I should be able to rat about on my zed. And Dave reckons he has a suggestion for making my ‘zed run better – apparently the standard ignition unit fails to give enough advance for the 251 – it can be tweaked though with a dremel…which apparently gives vastly better performance and economy…

    My one exception to my resting was while I was cooking dinner and the, uh, box of kitchen stuff magic’d itself into the lounge. Yes. And that dishwasher, I never touched it m’lord, it just shuffled itself across to that other wall. As did the bookcase. I was astonished. *looks sheepishly at Kathryn*