Monday's random mutterings - November 2nd 2015 (LBE)

It's been a while since I did a proper general update type post, since I was busy posting the A-Z posts last month. So, I thought I'd do one this week, and get you all caught up on what's been going on around here.

But, first...

It will be Iggy's birthday in two days time. So... A very happy birthday to you, Iggy!

***

I'm glad my family visited the weekend they did, because the weekend after their visit was... Well... I suppose the best description for it would be to call it eventful and messy.

It started off nice enough, and we had a pleasant Saturday. Though I wasn't feeling 100%, so I took something to help me sleep. Then, in the early hours of Sunday morning, I woke up convinced I heard pouring water... Something similar to the sound a washing machine makes when it's filling itself with water... Only the water was flowing faster. As well as Kelly shouting something about exploding radiators.

Naturally, I first thought I was dreaming, or confused by being half asleep.

I wasn't.

Although, it was the hot water pipe to the bathroom sink that had burst, not the radiator. But, with them being right next to each other, and Kelly not being able to get close because of the jet of scorching hot water shooting out of the pipe, I suppose it was an easy mistake to make.

Anyway, the short version of the story is that Kelly had to wade through the hot water to turn off the hot water (there was several inches of it by the time he realized it was happening and woke me, so he burned his leg doing so). Then we had to find someone to help us get the water supply to the sink off, since we couldn't find the knob, which meant calling the landlord, since the only one of our neighbours who would answer was as clueless as us. The landlord had to come help us, which meant a bit of a drive for him, followed by several hours of the landlord running up and down the stairs with buckets of water while we tried to figure out why it rained inside unless our boiler was turned off completely, and Kelly tried to mop up the mess in our bathroom and hallway.

The chaos all started shortly before 2:30am - though how long the water had been pouring at that point we aren't sure... I know it was all fine when I went to sleep a little after midnight, but Kelly had been gaming with headphones on, so hadn't noticed it at first. It was about 5:00am before we had everything sorted well enough that the landlord could leave.

Of course, with it being Sunday, it was Monday before someone could come out to take a look, since the landlord getting the water turned off made it no longer an emergency. So, we had no hot water all of that Sunday.

The plumbers arrived bright and early on the Monday morning though.

It took them five minutes to repair the burst pipe, but took ages for them to figure out the other issue, and as they did the hallway ceiling fell in (luckily with nobody in the way). The good thing about that was, it helped them to figure out the problem.

It turned out that some idiot had done the pipe for our water so that it disappeared in to the wall, and then stopped. I'm not sure why this caused the boiler to keep wanting to send water to it, but I do know it meant the water was pouring in to the wall. It hadn't been noticed before, since they've had some issues to fix in the roof, so assumed the dampness in the hallway walls and ceiling was from that, and the person who did it had nicely plastered around where the pipe disappeared, so it looked like it was done properly when it was checked when our landlords brought the place (which was only in the last couple of years).

Once they knew what the problem was, they were able to sort out a new pipe for our water to go where it's meant to go, as well as pulling up the carpeting and flooring that was too soggy to repair, and replacing rotting floorboards so we could get to our bedroom and bathroom safely. Plus, they made sure we had hot water by the end of that Monday too.

After that it was a case of waiting for everything to dry out so the proper repair work could begin. A process that would have been much quicker if the weather hadn't turned cold and wet right before this, and hardly been dry since. Actually, if I'm honest, things still aren't dried out properly, so they have a dehumidifier set up in the hallway to try and move things along a bit.

Plus, we had to get our towels all clean again, since every single one got used to help with cleaning up the water. I washed each load twice, since the water was gross, and no way was I going to use those towels until they'd had a couple of washes! Good thing we got a dryer when we did.

Other than the building, the only thing that got damaged was my bathroom scales, which ended up under a couple of inches of water. But they weren't working too well anymore anyway, since I'd dropped them, so it's no big deal. Oh, and there was Kelly's leg, but that wasn't too bad, and healed quickly.

I have to say though... It's times like this I'm glad I rent - and only have to pay for damages we cause directly - and I'm pretty sure the landlords are very glad they have insurance!

It turned out that Kevin came for his visit after the above incident. But, thankfully, the guys did a great job of making sure things were clear and safe for me, so it wasn't an issue with us getting in and out, and I explained to Kevin about it all, so he understood why most of the hallway and part of our place is currently just bare floorboards.

***

I ended up back at the dentist at the start of October... One of my old fillings came out.

Good news though: it was a quick fix, and when the dentist checked, there were no other issues.

So maybe.. Just, maybe... I might get a bit of a break from dentists for a while? *looks hopeful*

***

I've mentioned this in passing a few times, but...

When we moved in here earlier this year, we saw that we have two cables coming in to this place for TV options: a cable for a sky dish, and a cable for an arial. Although, someone had cut the end of the arial cable.

I have a freeview box, since we couldn't have Sky where we lived last, and I was given one that had audio description and talking menus. So, naturally, we had someone put a new piece on the end of the arial cable to use that, since the repair guy for the building was willing and able to do that for free for us if we got the piece (which only cost about £1.50 - which is around $3).

Unfortunately, we discovered immediately that either the arial doesn't work properly, or the cable is damaged, so we weren't managing to get signal for most channels (and those we did get were poor quality).

This left us with two options. Either pay someone to sort the TV arial, then continue to use freeview (which means only a small selection of channels) and then sort out something like Netflix for movies, and those TV shows that air on channels freeview doesn't get. Or, since we could have it here, get Sky, which would mean someone would automatically come and sort anything that needed doing for the Sky dish or cable as part of the set-up.

The good thing with Sky is the extra channels (including a large number of movie channels, Animal Planet and all the Discovery channels, etc). The downside is the limited accessability for menus. However, since I've been using Sky since around when it was first out, I have some idea how it works, so it's usable... Just not as accessable as the special freeview box.

Anyway... To cut a long story short... We decided to get Sky.

When the guy on the phone asked me what I wanted from my Sky package, I made both him and Kelly laugh by firmly announcing that, "I want to be able to watch movies and cartoons... Oh, and Animal Planet too!"

Now I can do so, since the Sky was installed last Wednesday.

Much to the relief of the guy who came to sort it out, the cable and dish are both working well, so he just had to plug everything in. Although, I think he also changed the end piece on the Sky cable, to make sure that wasn't damaged in any way. That would have been much nicer for him than the alternative, which would have required him to be very high up during a not-so-nice day. I mean, the weather wasn't as bad that morning as it's been some days, but the wind was quite strong, and he'd have been on the ocean side of the building while quite high up, so there would have been plenty of wind coming in off the ocean at him. I know for a fact he was quite relieved to have avoided that.

So... What's the first thing I did when the Sky guy left?

Curled up on the sofa for a few hours of Animal Planet, of course! LOL!

I miss the accessable menus. But having a good choice of TV channels makes up for it.

I can't say I'm too bothered about the audio description though, since it wasn't available for most shows even on my special box, anyway... It's kind of difficult to miss what you didn't really have. I mean, I should have had it, officially, but only if the producers of the shows arranged it, which many don't seem to have bothered to do.