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So, I have spent the day trundling (well, moving fairly rapidly) up and, well, down the UK. Rebecca, as you might recall was sporting a faulty heated rear window (it looked like this when it was on); so today I ran (well, drove) up to JLH to get it changed for a new one.

This was accomplished, as was throwing more sealant around the front window which is just refusing to seal. It made it through the hose-pipe-test today, so hopefully it’s now sealed. The first seal that went in was too small, apparently this one might be a bit large* :-(

Anyhow, enough of that.

I’ve had faint urges to write a post that isn’t just an update on the house, although there’s plenty to talk about on that front too. One of those things that has been rattling about in my brain is the question of how I ended up stood in a grocer’s trying to work out what food was the least harmful to the environment and cursing the fact I’d read this, which is for, for the most part a post about the evils of peat. Now, this, for me, is preaching to the choir. I’ve been vaguely avoiding peat for years. I just need to get my mother off the stuff, really, but apart from occasional accidental peat purchases, or the odd lapse of judgement to keep the peace when my mum’s helping us, peat isn’t something that crosses our threshold. Or our garden’s threshold. Anyhow, you get the idea.

But I was reading it because I was considering ‘retweeting’ a tweet (specifically :@jamieoliver Yr one of the good guys, so any chance you’ll drop using peat in your products? http://bit.ly/hRAPnQ #nomorepeat) and wanted to check it was sane before I retweeted it. So here I am in my coir created heaven reading about peat when I read something about UK grown tomatoes and their carbon footprint.

How I ended up caring so much about the planet, I’m unclear on. I think it’s mostly that I care about the planet more than I care about humans. Which is odd, really, given that I’m a nurse. The thing is, I actually care about individual humans. I like humans on an individual scale, but as a species? Boy do we suck. I’m not terribly convinced about the right of humans to survive as a species, on this planet, because we’ve royally screwed it up. And keep doing so. And despite notionally having the intelligence to work out that dumping tons of toxic waste in the sea, using non-renewable, non-biodegradable stuff and dumping that and pouring nasty gasseous waste into the air is all a bundle of a bad ideas, we keep doing it. We seem to be trying to make the planet as uninhabitable as possible.

And so I think I’ll try and do my little bit to make it less crapity. And it started with energy saving lightbulbs (my dad did that, back when they were 16 quid each – and that was discounted – he still replaced all the lights in the house with energy savers). And I suppose from an early age I was taught to recycle and compost. Not in a greener-than-green-holier-than-thou way. It’s just that’s what we did. Glass was separated, paper stacked neatly and taken to the recycling bin at the tip, and other waste squashed down to take the least space possible. We made-do-and-mended an awful lot. Very little would get replaced until it was utterly unfixable. My mum always cooked from fresh food, or at least mostly; and I always drank juice rather than lots of sodas, so I guess that’s why I find the quantity of plastic around now quite freaky.

Anyhow, so it crept and crept, and for ethical and health reasons I cut down on meat too, and now Kathryn and I eat very little meat, some fish, and locally grown produce. Only it’s not that simple.

Because locally grown, out of season produce may consume more CO₂ than getting it from somewhere else. At least, possibly. It’s one of these irritatingly unknowables. Because companies that suck that nasty oily gunk out of the ground, they don’t like to say how much energy it takes to produce fuel from it, because, well, it’s about as green as tipping creosote over a duckling in a river. No matter how much green you put in your logo, and how much you advertise that it’s low sulphur or produces less particulates; it’s hideous for the environment.

It takes great swathes of energy (in this country from burning coal and gas….) to make petrol and diesel and avgas. I have no idea if the sums about Carbon Footprints of Tomatoes grown locally vs grown abroad and air-freight’d here include the CO₂ produced to make the fuel to get the plane in the air. Or not. And where do you draw your arbritrary line?

You can put your arbritrary line anywhere and make either side cleaner, I’m sure.

None of which helps me… So I stand there with my wife and we debate, we try and go for stuff that’s notionally both locally grown and in season (thus, hopefully, not grown in some hot-house heated with unclean electricity**)

But I don’t really want to just eat locally grown, in season food. I don’t mind mostly doing so, because really, there’s plenty of choices. But I admit it, I’m weak. I like my variety and I like going ‘hrm, tomatoes’ to have tomato sauce in the middle of winter. I know it’s wrong, and bad, and I am just not a good enough person.

I’m assuming, however, that by markedly reducing the amount of out-of-season stuff, and getting stuff that’s in-season in the country where it’s grown, so long as it’s not too far away, we’re doing some kind of precarious balancing act that, when combined with the EV (when we get it going) and the home-grown-foods, and the ‘green’ electricity means that we’re doing better’n some (albeit not as well as others) at cutting our carbon footprint. And perhaps that’ll be enough to quiet the voice in the back of my head which tells me that we’re f*cking up the planet…

* I realise that given what this post is about that traveling a vast distance to get a window changed on a petrol-driven car is, well, ridiculous. But I never claimed to be perfect….well, okay, I only claim it infrequently.
** And now I’m stuck with an image involving ringing a bell and wandering around saying ‘Unclean, Unclean’ about veg. Meh.

Things I miss or am looking forward to, greatly.

Having a washing machine on a floor which is (a) more or less level and (b) strong enough to support it without bouncing. Having to cling to the damn thing every time it does a spin cycle is very tiring.

A kitchen. A real kitchen, with a stove, and suchlike. I really, painfully miss having a stove. And surfaces to put things on. Yesterday I destroyed a plate because it’s been living on the floor and I reached for something – which unleashed an avalanche which ended with the salt flying from the tiny bit of counter and hitting the plate, sat on the floor. It was my black university plate, which I quite liked, more for its historical significance than anything else. But hey. It’s gone now.

Our stuff. I like having books around. And music. And shelves. And cupboards. And being able to tidy things away rather than into piles.

Our sofa. I miss our sofa. I have little hope of getting the sofa back from Manning Logistics, so far as I can tell. I’m periodically trying to find out if they’ve appointed an administrator. But they don’t seem to have, so far. Which makes it challenging to find out how to get our sofa back. I’m presuming breaking-and-entering-and-taking-our-property is frowned upon.

So, just before I set to on my essay (while I drink my coffee) I thought I’d poke you all with another update. Incidentally, since I like knowing what’s going on in people’s lives (I’m nosey like that) and there’s more mutterings of explosions in the LJ world, if anyone’s got a non-LJ-journal which they post on, and wouldn’t mind my continued nosings into their lives, then popping a comment on here would be much appreciated.

Anyhow, the builders have astonished me by turning up every single day at 0800-0830 (today I suspect they were here earlier than that!), and working until 1600 or 1700 fairly frequently. The driveway is now laid, it’s just the rest of the retaining walls (and the replacement for the wall that was between us and our neighbour), waterproofing the back of the wall and infilling with soil to go. They reckon by the end of next week the driveway should be done and they’ll be done. Quality wise, they’re not the highest quality of works I’ve ever seen, but then they are outside works, so they may not be bothering with doing things quite to the standard they might inside.

Meh.

A few days ago:

Today:

They’ll be invited in to quote for taking down the wall inside anyhow. Probably get around 3 or 4 builders to quote for that.

The garden continues apace, we managed to get 4 more native plants in, which is very cool. Found an online supplier of natives, too, which fills me with joy. The seedlings continue to grow – we were a bit keen and put some of them outside to harden off a bit. Apparently it’s a bit early for that (but we need some indoor space to stat the next lot off!). Kathryn planted loads of ’em while she wasn’t feeling great and I actually dug over an enormous great chunk of garden.

We actually went to the garden centre for some topsoil (although it occurred to me later that we could nick some of the top-soil-ish stuff from the earthworks, which I did, then mixed with lots of compost), some compost, and a single, lone plant. My mum, you see, has bought a plant for us. Two, actually. Well, she bought one and sent us a cheque for another. We therefore went in search of it and…well… our legendary restraint kicked in:

Anyhow, much digging and:

(for comparison, a few days ago).

On monday, theoretically, the electrician and plumber arrive. We’ve not managed to strip the ceiling tiles all off, which is a bit distressing. And I’m doing my degree work (coffee’s nearly finished), which means I’m not doing ceiling tiles today. Again, my scheduling sucks arse – if I were better at doing things when I should, not when it’s a panicked rush, then this probably wouldn’t have arisen. However, we’ll do our best to get them off – and at the end of the day, I’m off next week, so I can work in the rooms they’re not in getting them down, I suppose, at worst.

Oh, I went running (along the river) this morning. I’m now knackered, pre-emptively, for the late shift I’m on later :-(.

In other news, I’ve been much enjoying the output from the Bush VHF61 – so thank you muchly John! The cables are on order to create an aux input, and with luck I’ll manage to nab a dab adaptor – which should mean that we can listen to 6 music on it :) Yay.

So, yesterday while Kathryn was at work I spent the evening around at my good friend John’s, with the Bush VHF61 radio. We picked this up in Wales, when we were on holiday… Err, which I don’t seem to have posted about. I was almost certain I had, but clearly I didn’t. Or at least, I can’t instantly find it.

Anyhow, we spent a couple of delightful days in Wales, and during our stay, I picked up a Bush valve radio, I actually quite wanted the ferranti one, which was in terrible condition, but the seller wanted 15 quid for it – and I didn’t want to give him 15 quid – nor, in point of fact, did the shop owner, who said it wasn’t worth 15 quid. Then he went on to say that he did have a radio that was similar, and working, and which might be worth 15 quid.

Now, you can say ‘no Kate, it wasn’t worth 15 quid’, but frankly, I disagree.

It was, how to put this politely, filthy:

And plugging it in, in the wilds of West Wales, produced no signs of life from medium or long wave – and FM only worked if I put the FM transmitter that lives on the iPhone in the car actually next to the box. Still, it clearly worked at least ‘a bit’ and I wasn’t going to whinge too much. Especially since I recall we bought several objects and the bloke knocked it down to a nice round value.

So, yesterday, Radio in Minor I headed round to Johns and we stripped it down, applied the awesome power of his ultrasonic cleaner to various bits, gently washed other bits, dusted, cleaned, used naptha to clean the valves & unfortunately I managed to wash a small number of numbers off the tuning scale*.

John checked some voltages and we discovered that it was running waaaay undervoltage on the HT and heater circuits – which was rectified by setting it to run at 230V (it was set for 250V and I was disinclined to change it until I knew what the internal voltages were).

It still could do with:
Bakelite polishing
New fabric for the grille (because it appears the grille should actually have a fair proportion of red in it)
A new arial (because the reason FM’s so lousy? Some twonk has cut the internal arial lead, but apparently FM was always a bit sad on these sets).

But it now looks like this:

And we spent some of the evening listening to the delights of the radio world upon it :)

I’m really impressed though, to have something 50 years old work, essentially, out of the box just makes me have more belief in the concept that older things are better made**.

* Having carefully checked that they seemed water resistant, I wiped the back of it several times with a damp cloth, and then noticed a mark which I rubbed…and…oh dear, now we’re missing 97ish Hz upwards :(

At least the station names remained.

** Thankfully it seems to have very few yack dung capacitors, and the few paper ones actually look in remarkably good shape. Even the rubber insulation seems to be doing well. It does, however, sport a nice modern PVC mains lead :)

So, the builder turned up today and was here for a couple of hours, they measured stuff, poked around, moved some small bits of concrete and took a small chunk off another bit.

Then they explained that they were going to go and order gravel/sand/etc and hire the digger and might drop some stuff off today or would, otherwise, be back tomorrow. Now I’m forced to wonder, being as I am not a builder, why they couldn’t, say, have done this on Monday or Tuesday, or even yesterday, knowing that they’d be “starting” (and I use that term loosely) today.

I can’t say I’m hugely impressed.

Unless anyone can explain the rationale for waiting for the start date before attempting to hire the equipment that they need?

*Sigh*

Oh, and then they looked very peeved about the double/triple glazing person measuring up, proclaiming that “that’s our speciality”. Now, I’d’ve been happy to have them quote for their speciality, but frankly, I’m going to get more than one quote, so just live with it. Also, if it’s your speciality, then you really ought to bloody tell someone. Put it on your cards, your web-ad, your e-mails… Mention it in some way before angsting that you’ve not been asked to do it. I mollified them with a fresh copy of the plans (they forgot theirs), and the small pre-payment, and saying that they were welcome to quote for the windows. But companies using FSC Hardwood and Triple (or very high U-Value) double glazing aren’t deeply common. Also, companies that say ‘please come down to our workshop and see the windows we make’ are not hugely common either…

So, the electrician has said he can’t start until a week late, and the plumber rang and left a request for us to call him (don’t know what that’s about yet), and the guttering bloke, he’s not starting until that Monday / Tuesday / Wednesday. And it’s currently hacking with rain, and I should be working on my course (I’ve had a little poke at it this morning).
(more…)

Now, normally I’d not pause in my day to comment on bird shite hitting the car, it’s not like it’s wholly unheard of. Usually I wander out with a wet tissue, muttering quietly about poo, and wipe it off on my arrival at home.

But this was just astonishing for the sheer volume.

I’m driving along, peaceably, just trundling through a junction when SPLUTCH, the car is splattered with bird shit. Seriously. To give you an idea, it hit: the screen (three large dollops), the door mirror, the quarterlight, almost fully one half of the roof was covered in multiple spatters around an inch to half an inch round, the side of the door had a massive streak of bird shit on it, and to top it off, I had the window wound down (can you see where this is going?) it hit the top edge of the door (as in the actual door, not the window bit) and the wound down window, streaking across and down the inside of the door, it also hit the inside of the window frame about halfway up, splattering onto the interior pillar, and….

Yes, I had bird shit on my arm. My arm that was, for once, not resting on the door. No, my arm was safely inside the car, and yet there it was, spattered in poo.

I’m assuming this was the work of the Seagulls, because few other common birds produce such large quantities of shit. Frankly, however, I was too astonished to check, the poo seeming to be everywhere. I am, at this point, assuming that I’ve managed to wash it off the car and myself successfully, but I fear where else it might have found it’s way.

I have no idea what else I might add to this rant, but today Seagulls get no love.

This place has been abandoned for as long as I’ve been visiting Bristol, let alone lived here…

Incase you hadn’t realised, I’ve now been awake nearly 48 hours. In an hour, I’ll be able to say that out of the past 48 hours I spent 43 awake. And those 5? They weren’t a contiguous block of 5 hours of sleep. That was 5 hours split into an hour, 2 phone calls, 2 hours, [walk 2 miles] 30 minutes (on a train) and then a few hours later roughly another hour and a half of poor quality sleep (on a train). This is, largely, because I’m an ass.

Anyhow, on to the real point of this rambly extra postette. So, we have the electrician lined up, and he’s going to come in on the 4th, we hope. I have discovered today that there are companies making modern bakelite switches, which is entertaining. Not sure what my opinion is, other than they’re painfully expensive anyhow.

Today I’m arranging the plumbers coming in too, which is cool.

I’m also sending back the documents to the structural engineer for a small correction before submitting them for building regs (I’ll wait until Kathryn’s home to check sanity on that).

I also saw a rather fun woodstove in a local reclamation yard today (yes, I shouldn’t have gone in there). It’s definately not a smoke-control approved one, so we could only burn smokeless fuel in it, which would suck, because we can get very cheap wood if we get it when my mum gets hers… Obviously, we then have to lug it back up from Cornwall, but it’s *way* cheaper than local; or of course, we can scrounge wood from skips :)

But not if we have a non-smoke-control burner. Which is upsetting, because it’s quite funky and although I’m not convinced it goes with our fireplaces, I quite like it. Anyhow. The difficulty is finding stoves which are shallow enough to fit on the hearths and look nice. The other option is, of course, inset stoves which aren’t nearly so efficient or effective, but which are definately a potential solution.

Of course, by the time we decide on this, it’ll be properly summer and it won’t matter for another 6 months.

In other news, the Mac is full. I need to move some stuff onto the server, which means moving the server, which I was sort-of planning to do today. But haven’t yet. And I’ve been prompted to have some kind of nap, which is increasingly appealing. Anyway, apart from my failure to ring the police about the sofa (tomorrow, I think) and chase the guttering person (again, tomorrow I feel). I think it might be time to lie down and see what a nap brings.