Mostly lemon based

Blog

2012 and all that

So, as is traditional (for me) here’s a little summary of the year just gone. I’d like to say it was a fantastic year and I look forward to more of the same, but the a more honest comment is that it was a pretty crappy year, and I’m glad it’s over. And yes, I’m aware that there’s no particular reason that today is declared 2013 and yesterday was 2012, and that we could start our years at any point. We just choose the bit where we’re nearest to the sun…

But hey, society (here) chunks the passage of time into approximately 365.24 day chunks and I’m willing to go with that for the sake of not explaining myself more.

Anyway, enough philosophising. (more…)

1/1/2013
Not-mince pies

So, Kathryn doesn’t like mince pies, but I like mince pies, and this year when I made them I decided to come up with an alternate filling to make some not-mince pies for her to have while I’m chowing down on the mince…

So, this year I used this recipe for the short crust this year, but substituted about 2/3rd of the white flour with wholemeal and added a touch more sugar.

For the filling I combined:

1/2 cup mixed nuts (although chopped walnuts would have been better, I think)
Four pears chopped into small chunks (approx 1cm cubes)
1/3 cup Pernod
1/2 cup dark brown soft sugar

All in a small saucepan and simmered for about 15 minutes. Then added some cornflour just to thicken it up to a consistency suitable to put in pies. Then I finally popped about 1.5 teaspoons of filling into each pie, and cooked them for about 20 minutes in the oven at 180ish. I think. Bit vague on that, but any mince pie recipe will give you the temperature and cooking time… :)

28/12/2012
Okay, so just FLAC then?

So, when I first set up the music server I initially intended just to get the music using normal network shares. But the Viewsonic VMP74 didn’t seem to want to connect to it. Which was irritating. So I set up UPnP. Now, that’s the only way we’ve used it, pretty much (apart from iPlayer and the odd bit of YouTube). Whilst lots of things worked, files over 4Gb caused it to skip onto the next track at 4Gig, and despite thinking it supported FLAC files, it didn’t seem to work.

But yesterday I set it up to use the network shares and… it’ll play FLAC across the network (and the 30Gig Blu-Ray rips work fine). This is confusing, but happyness.

Of course, this still leaves one teensy tiny problem. iTunes. iTunes in it’s perpetual suckage does not support FLAC. Despite the fact users have been, apparently, asking for this for the last 6 releases. Hey Apple, I love your hardware, and your OS, but I have to admit iTunes is the most crappy piece of software I have to use regularly (at home, we won’t get into what I have at work).

So now everything else in the house can use FLAC, and nothing needs UPnP. I still have to dual rip everything and waste disk space so that I can have music on my iPhone. But I don’t need to transcode FLAC, and I don’t need to fire up mediatomb every time the machine starts. This makes future configuration much, much easier.

24/12/2012
Steady, if not stellar, progress

So, I’m still not back to pre-course levels of productivity, and some mornings spin by without so much as a by-your-leave (mostly with me either dinking on the laptop, watching some TV series or other* or disappearing into a book) but I’m maintaining a level of progress on the house which, whilst it’s not quite what I’d like is sufficient to keep me reasonably happy.

Today I’ve panelled in the side of the bath. For much of the last year and a half (since the heating was installed) we’ve not had any panelling on the bath, allowing open access to the crap underneath it. Giving rise to a gentle breeze through the hole in the wall where the waste water pipe exits into the roof space above the laundry/server room**. There’s still a breeze where the pipe for the waste water exits for the sink, but the bath one is now, finally, behind some panelling.

Yes, it’s scrap MDF which is about the least appropriate wood to put in a bathroom, but it’s what I’ve got lying around and I’m hoping that the application of sufficient sealant and paint will protect it well enough.

There’s quite a bit of filling to do (because I’ve screwed it in all over the place. I’ve left a nice little panel so you can access the waste water connections and the valves for the taps… And I’ve even primed it today. Tomorrow, despite being on nights, I’ll endeavour to get the sealant on around the edges and slap some filler on it. That’s about all I’m scheduling for tomorrow.

Handily, under the bath was lurking a multipack of blades for a razor which I’ve kept the handle for, which saves buying more blades for the current one for a while****. Also a lot of packaging for decorating bits which has now gone into the recycling…

I also spent some time fixing the clothes airer. A while ago it broke on one side and became rather a floppy object. I attempted to fix it with a bit of a metal sheath, but it kept coming apart and fairly quickly we got fed up of pushing it back together, and just used it with it flopping about. Now, I’m sure it’ll come as no surprise to anyone that of course this massively increased the stress on the other side of the airer, and yesterday it snapped on the other side dropping our laundry.

So today I set to with some of the spare pipework from the bathroom:

Which seems to have done the job. At least, it’s now standing up. Although it looks like the design was reliant on the flexing of the plastic (*shudder*) which means that some of the other clips that were previously fixed in place with lugs are now sliding clips. Which….well, it’s working for the minute. As it’s the third time it’s been repaired (if you count the lousy fix before) I think I’m being pretty generous to it. It falls into the ‘I don’t want to replace it before we leave’ category, because we have no need of more things that we need to ship.

I’ve also given the stairs a quick hoover, done my uniforms for work on Monday night, and had a quick hoover/pick up in the lounge… And now I’m relaxing to Blondie (Parallel Lines, on yummy yummy vinyl) whilst testing a theory about the VMP74 (which seems not to like streaming files more than 4Gb over UPnP*****). So that’s not so bad.

* Recent fixations: Community and MASH, although I’ll fairly frequently watch the Rachel Maddow Show, which is why I’m much more up on USian politics than our own. I think this is partly because Rachel Maddow is awesome, and presents a new show of a variety that just doesn’t exist here. And partly because it’s easier to cope with watching the insanity in the US than watching the painful horror going on here, as our government gut protections for those with long term illness or disability, as they’ve privatised the NHS (they really have, go look at who’s supplying NHS ‘services’ (even writing that makes me want to wash myself, it makes me feel dirty), and endeavoured to turn the lucky people with jobs against the many who are not so fortunate.
** Yes, I’m aware that this is a less than desirable combination. But it puts the server well out of the way, where the fact it’s an old machine with many, many fans is not a problem. It’s set up to shut down on all sorts of heat related errors, and has a virtually brand new power supply ***.
*** Unfortunately the PC in the garage appears to have died. I’ve not looked into this to see if this is the power supply dying or something else. But at any rate, I noticed it wasn’t running the camera software when I went down there, and on rebooting it’s not managing to restart. Indeed, it’s not even managing to POST. Which is probably bad.
**** Ever since realising that making the razor pink had little effect on it’s ability to produce smooth legs I’ve used whatever razor meets a complex mix of price/shape/number of blades criteria, and the winner for a long time was one which was sold for a long time by all the big supermarket chains in the UK. Slim, triple bladed and really, really cheap it was my fave. Unfortunately, they all stopped selling them – Tesco being the last to stock the blades. I bought several packs of the blades towards the end of production, but eventually ran out… only, apparently not.
***** It seems that it does work playing the file over the network not using UPnP.

23/12/2012
A faint irritant

So, when I plumbed in the shower, I didn’t quite manage to get the pipework parallel.

It was quietly niggling at me, and since I still had some weeping joints I decided to recut the pipe…

Whilst it’s not perfect, it’s way better, and I’m pretty much happy with it. Also, having replaced the PTFE tape in the joints with a smidge more, and having replace the olives with fresh ones, the joints are now sealed.

I also finally hung the toilet roll holder we bought in Wales 2 years ago…

It’s quite amazing how nice it is to have a toilet roll holder, and not to have to scrabble round on the back of the toilet, or on the floor to find it.

We’re just waiting for the lino to arrive, for us to hang the curtain rail (and buy a curtain) and I need to hack a couple of bits of wood into being side panels for the bath, and we’ll actually have a more-or-less finished bathroom*.

Also yesterday, I finally cured the record deck of it’s hum. I switched the ground point inside the deck, removing an earth loop it appears I’d created when I was replacing the wiring. It’s odd, because I’m pretty sure that’s the original cable routing (because I don’t recall adding in a bloody great link made out of bare copper), but hey. I’ve fiddled with it and that seems to have improved things. There’s still some rumble on there, but I think that’s just the way it is with old bearings – I could replace them, but I’m not convinced it’s worth it. Although looking at Lenco Heaven it seems someone’s come up with a hodge to get a 240v/50Hz deck working on a 120v/60Hz supply, such as will be around in Canada. Indeed, that would mean that I could take my rather nice Rotel deck too. Shiny, shiny. As they say.

Anyway, I have plans for today. At least vaguely. So I think, maybe, it’s time to get on with them.

* I also need to trim the waste water pipe and I should, really, replace the flush in the toilet. Although I’ve been putting that off.

23/12/2012
Retirement should be fine.

So, despite cramming in many hours of working on the house, I’ve spent the past few days catching up on some reading. You may recall that I spent some time at Mr. B’s Emporium, having what they term a ‘book spa’. It was a delightful*, and the charming chap who spent time talking to me about my tastes, and even coped with my complete mental block on names of authors I like (not uncommon) turned up with a massive stack of books. I’ve read my way through some of them, others lurking on a list of ‘buy when you see them’ have popped up in second hand shops and thus been added to the pile.

He / It have added some new awesome authors to my ‘to buy when seen’ list, too**. Indeed, with some effort on my part I’ve managed to squash the urge which says “I MUST WORK MORE”, and have actually sat last night and this morning with Zoo City (finished it in the very long bath I took), and have relaxed a teensy tiny bit.

It’s weird trying to crush the ‘BUT I SHOULD BE DOING SOMETHING’ urge which hides behind me, leaping out. Yes, we need to get the house ready to flog for when we go to Canada. Yes, I need to prep for the exam***. But none of it needs to be done right this instant. Although I’m quite keen to get the bathroom fully in service for Christmas.

Anyway, I have delighted this morning in not doing anything that could be construed as work (watched ‘The West Wing’ over breakfast, read Zoo City, had bath (and read more Zoo City), made lunch and ate it watching MASH), and now I’m going to go the garage (in the rain, no less), and do some present making. Just like Santa.

Yay.

* The only very minor discomfiture about the whole experience was that it was a bit chilly. It’s always a bit chilly in there, and I forgot to take warm socks.
** Dorothy B Hughes and Lauren Beukes for example.
*** The book arrived today full of Canadian Exam Prep questions.

20/12/2012
It’s been a dog of a job

Having spent days and days painting and prepping the walls, stripping off the old silicone and regrouting tiles, the bathroom is starting to come together:

And the bathroom now has a shower. It has been a bit hellish, really. So, when I plumbed in the sink I made two errors. The first was that I forgot that the shower would need a pressure limiter, which would need to be hidden away somewhere. The second was I didn’t think to check which way round the shower pipes needed to be. Largely, because in my head I assumed it didn’t matter.

It does, of course, matter. We have exposed pipework, and it’s chrome pipework, which makes it quite difficult to negotiate the matter of crossing pipes.

In the end, I hacked the plumbing apart under the sink, abused a flexible tap attachment, and made a gentle S shape which allowed the pipes to cross underneath the sink and emerge the right way up. The pressure limiter sits, in a somewhat ugly manner, behind the waste water outlet (large lump of grey plastic that it is). But, at the end of the day, the shower is in and working.

Today, though, was spent on the taps. These rather fetching Victorian / Edwardian mixer taps that we got to replace the cruddy plastic / chrome ones that were in the bathroom when we moved in. However, having got the old ones out (a hellish job in itself, the access is incredibly limited), I discovered that the new tap attachments didn’t fit the period mixer taps. Whilst the thread gauge, and the external diameter were right, for whatever reason, the internal diameter of the taps was too small to take the modern tap adaptors. They’re meant to fit. But they don’t.

Eventually, after much cursing I went to the local plumbers merchant*, who didn’t have the flexible DIY pipes that people seem to love so much. So, having not had a shower since yesterday, grovelled in the dirt under the bath and on the bathroom floor, and having reached a level of tiredness from holding my arms in an incredibly uncomfortable position for a couple of hours, I headed to B&Q, who did have the hideous plastic flexy adaptors.

One of them went on perfectly. The other one was either faulty when it went on, or was broken by me as it went on. Turning it on (gingerly, as I do anyhow) lead to me being sprayed with cold water. The rubber seal it turned out was broken. I wailed a little and contemplated heading to B&Q again, before (thankfully) recalling that lurking in the garage was another QuikPlumb joint that the plumbers had used to give us temporary plumbing. I sorted through the fleets of plumbing stuff and found the requisite object. Having taken the broken one to bits, reassembled it and installed it, I finally got to have my bath….

I can’t shower yet because the shower curtain rail is not yet attached to the ceiling. Also, it’d be nice to get the flooring down. I originally wanted to tile the bathroom, but the pain of taking the door off it’s hinges, trimming it and putting it back has put me off. So we’ll go with lino. I know, I hate lino. But it’s not so bad in the tiny area of the bathroom. It also means there won’t be a huge step from the corridor into the bathroom. What’s that? I’m rationalising? Yes, yes I am.

* Who are apparently under the impression that I’m pro or semi-pro. Odd.

19/12/2012
Slicing the cupcake.

So, having submitted and paid for the Nova Scotia nurses board registration*, that’s given us a sort of time line for departure. Not a fixed “we’ll be leaving at point X” timeline. But a rough idea timeline. 6 months for registration, a few months for finding a job and selling the house, and lo, we should be gone.

We’d also like to do some travelling. And saving up. But essentially. Timeline.

Which means that however I slice the cupcake (and I’ve tried many ways), I don’t think I can really schedule doing the Minor EV conversion before we go. I’d love to. I look at the sums and say “we’ll spend probably a grand on fuel, just going to my mum’s”. I think, every time I fill up the car with petrol ‘oh god, I hate petrol cars’. I despise supporting Esso, Shell and BP in their destruction of the environment. Whenever I’m stuck in a traffic jam I just am filled with this unutterable disappointment in the modern world, and in the fact that my friend Nikki was so ahead of the curve on this, and I’m still trailing along.

But it’s a simple case of “we aren’t rich enough for that”. The old adage about quick/quality/price kicks in, and to do the project quickly, to the standard I want to do it, would cost vastly more than I have. To do the project at all requires me saving up some cash, but to do it to the standard I’d like to do it, it’s simply not going to happen at this point. And as John pointed out yesterday – I don’t want to get half way through and then need to move, and need to move with an immobile minor. Not a good plan.

On the plus side, most of the bits I’ve got will remain ‘good enough’ for the project. The DC-DC, the pump, the motor and the controller are all fine. I’ll just have to package them up and ship them over… Which is irritating. But the disappointment of having pulled the Minor off the road for months, only to put her back on (when I get the diff fixed) with no improvement in her environmental impact is staggeringly sucky.

The only upside is that when we get to Canada, having a car will be handy, and Rebecca is likely to have to step into that role rather quickly.

Anyhow, I need to get on with cooking, grouting and painting. So, back to the grindstone with me. :)

* So they can tell me whether I’m eligible to sit the exam, which we think/hope I am, which will mean I can sit the exam and then register as a nurse, and then get a job there**
** Anyone want a registered emergency nurse in Nova Scotia?

16/12/2012
Progress

So, despite fairly small progress over the last few days* there has quite definitely been progress on the bathroom. I’ve stripped and sanded the walls, painted them, stripped the paint off where it was reacting or peeling for some reason which is so far unclear**, refilled, repainted… so we’ve gone from this a couple of days ago (after I’d removed the wallpaper and done the first round of filling):

To this, today. Which is slowly drying off:

And I’ve carefully removed the two tiles from behind the taps:

This is because, if you look carefully, you can see the lead pipe which used to feed the hot taps poking out from the wall, meaning there was a hole in one of the poorly fitted replacement tiles. I’ve also spent some time carefully cleaning up the 1930’s salvaged tiles:

They’re now looking adequately shiny to go behind the taps. This afternoon I’m going to make a little treck to the shop to get the chrome pipe to hook up the shower, the paint for the walls… and hopefully get those tiles installed ready for silicone sealant tomorrow.

I’m really hoping to get this finished by the end of next week, including the bathroom floor. So. Wish me luck.

In less good news, I went up into the attic for two jobs. One was the cheery attachment of some wood blocks to add some extra support for the rather heavy ceiling light (oh the fun I have surrounded by glass fibre). The other was to examine where the water leak in the bedroom was coming from.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t hard to find:

So we’re waiting for roofing specialists to get in touch. The rest of the roof appears to be in great shape, though, unlike the last house we were in where it was clearly a bit tired. But that is ungood. I’m surprised the surveyor didn’t spot it, but if there was anything in the way of it, they wouldn’t have looked.

Anyhow, that, I think we can all agree, needs fixing. And it’s beyond my ken on the whole DIY front, and probably wants a little scaffolding tower up at the front of the house. So we’ll see what they want to do about it…

Also up there is a 1950’s cement barrel, which I think is kinda cool, and would quite like to make a cushion out of. But that’s a whole ‘nother idea.

* We headed down to see my mum… also had to do food shopping, and so on and so forth.
** I am wondering if the filler is reacting with the paint it’s over, which is causing the paint on the top to peel. I have no idea, really. I just keep cleaning it up and trying different things. It’s got better but I’m still not entirely sure what’s up with it. I got through about 15 sanding sheets in a room that’s about 2m by 2m, half of which is tiled…. which is insane.

14/12/2012
Meh

Today is the international day of one word titles. Did you know that? No? I may be lying.

So, onwards with the house! Well, that was the plan. I’ve removed all the bathroom wallpaper apart from the bit behind the mirror (I need Kathryn’s help to remove the mirror). And today I finally managed to scrape off the paper behind the radiator… so I set to with the sander on the new filler and the crud on the walls. After a couple of hours sanding and an inordinate number of power sander sheets it became apparent that whatever hideous crap is on the walls of the bathroom is not coming off in a hurry.

I’ve tried application of sugar soap, steam, sandpaper, scrapers, hot water… it won’t shift. It’s a bit better after a couple of hours sanding, but hardly smooth.

In the end I’ve resorted to covering it with basecoat – and we’ll see how it looks. That is now drying, as is the ceiling which I’ve coated with plaster-primer. So tomorrow when Kathryn’s home I’ll hopefully do the rest of the room prep. Well, the rest of the first round of sanding and painting. Then there’s filling, sanding, and painting again. Then there’s painting with top-coat. Then there’s painting with top-coat. Then there’s installing the shower and curtain. Then there’s doing the floor.

Then there’s doing the underbath storage, although given that we’re not staying in this house forever I’m less enthused about doing that and may just box it in. It’d be lush to do every job properly, but why waste money? Meh, we’ll see how I’m feeling when I get there.

Anyhow, now it’s time for sitting, relaxing and some Dorothy B Hughes, courtesy of Mr B’s.

10/12/2012