31st December
It’s getting to be a lot like Christmas, well more like a cross between Groundhog Day and the bit in the bible with Noah and the raining for 40 days and nights. I keep dreaming of building an ark with some of the trees cut down, but with the continuous Covid level 4 lockdown, we’d have nowhere to go and couldn’t meet up with anyone when we got there! I’m wondering whether I need to mow the patio and bird feeder as the seeds are sprouting faster than the birds can find breaks in the rain to eat them.
After getting a final demand regarding our outstanding Utility Warehouse electricity bill from when we moved in July, I resent my epistle to both parties. Miraculously, I received a call the following day apologising for their cockup and that the debt collection company were paying my outstanding balance. This was followed a few hours later by UW, checking to see if I got the message and followed it up in an email. Nice Christmas present.
Storm Bella swept through our region causing major damage, well in our case a bin lid moved 10 feet, a few bits of dead branch fell and the bird feeder was blown into a slightly jaunty angle!
Christmas Day was quiet with June and I social distancing from the rest of the family as they gathered elsewhere. It was our first Christmas not seeing Emma and video calls are not the as nice as a real hug. We have all their presents here waiting a visit, but you can’t keep chocolates and wine too long, seems a shame to let them go to waste!! Just a well we did not have a full get-together as my niece picked up Covid from her daughter, who picked it up from her step sister, who got it from her school teacher. Unfortunately Katie’s ex partner refused to get his daughter tested, so now 5 are either with or have passed on Covid. What a dork!
June had a bit of a train themed decoration in the sitting room, with a train in the Christmas tree and another at the side. At least one can run on silent, I SAID AT LEAST ONE CAN RUN SILENT.
I found a pair of glass panelled doors in the attic which once hung in the kitchen (hinge cutouts painted but not filled). As it’s been so cold in the kitchen, we decided to put them back and see if it made the kitchen warmer – it did. I re-hung them so they now open outwards and when it gets a bit warmer, I will sand and paint them.
Well that’s all for 2020. See you on the other side where we will all be queuing for our jabs followed by a need for therapists dealing with agoraphobia and anthropophobia. No worry here though, with regular visits to Screwfix, who needs counselling.
Have a healthy and prosperous 2021, Nigel & June.
Sat 19the December
With the continuing wet weather, indoor diy calls. The guest room is finally finished and as the rollers and brushes were still wet, I painted my bedroom as well. All the decorating kit has been put away until after Christmas. Don’t want Santa getting paint on his clothing. I’ve also changed most of the switches and the occasional socket along the way and put up another two short strings of Christmas lights, just to be festive.
Happened to notice the drain outside the garage had disappeared under water during the deluge yesterday morning, 10 minutes before going out. With the risk of water running back into the garage, spent a frantic few minutes sweeping water onto the lawn. On returning and dressed in more suitable foot ware and waterproofs, I discovered the drain has a 4-inch pipe soak away. With saturated ground, it has zero functionality. On the positive side, it means that the water was not backed up from the septic tank! After lifting the one hundredweight grating, I bucketedout the contents and cleaned the slurry until my fingers went numb. Finally solved temporarily solution with an old submersible pump and a length of 30mm pipe. For healthy and safety, I placed an old white lampshade over the grating to warn anything walking or crawling past of the obstacle.
Still concerned that the loft is over 90% humidity, so I’ve ordered a dehumidifier to see if that can do something, otherwise we will need to get an expert in in the new year. It has a continuous drain facility so no need to keep going up and down the ladder to empty the reservoir. However the manual does state it needs to be over 15C to work correctly, so not a winter job.
With the sound like an angry swarm of hornets, Tim of AWS tree services descended on us. Without the shout of timber or coed (woods in Welsh) the offending ash trees slowly transformed into fuel for our log burner (an estimated 8 tons). The team of four, not tree fellas, quickly setup and with the aid of a mobile aerial platform, brought the trees adjacent to the road down in pieces. Having cleared up the main road, they moved to the side road when out of nowhere, an official from the highways department appeared following a tip off and proceeded to have a go at Tim for not having traffic lights set up as is “standard” practice (add £400 to the bill). Tim explained that all the work had been done from within our boundary and was let off with a stern warning, while the official ignored the traffic zipping past at over the 30mph speed limit. I checked on the web and there doesn’t appear to be any reference to “must have”, as long as the signs are up and all precautions are taken. Hey ho, just another jobs worth “busily doing nothing, working a whole day through “. It’s going to be interesting watching the squirrels zippering up a monolithed tree and finding nowhere to go.
Braved it into the attic to start running the cables for the cctv system. With all the battens in the loft construction, it’s a bit like an agility test for a game show. I got stuck for a few minutes while straddling one horizontal batten with my leg unable to bend enough to get it over another with my head avoiding cobweb encrusted ones above. Sorted predicament by grabbing ankle and hoiking it over. I find it safer to work in slippers rather than shoes as I can feel the joists through the fibreglass with at least one foot!
Latest lockdown rules are now set as two households, which means we can’t get together with the Welsh side of the family on Christmas Day, but can welcome Emma and Martin on Boxing Day. So with DIY on hold, we’ve been putting up the decorations, train set on Christmas tree, untangling lights etc.
June has started treatment with the Chiropractor to see if he can get her mobile again. He has high hopes and has had clients with worse mobility who he fixed.
If nothing else of interest happens in the next few days, have a safe and happy Christmas readers, a healthy New Year and Happy Birthday Keith.
June & Nigel
6th December
Today is a frosty zero degrees with the inside of the garage at a blistering 4 degrees. So far December has been wet, windy and more wet. I had to cart the printer out to the garage to hook up to my main PC as the wireless network refuses to communicate over 40 feet. It might have something to do with the aluminium clad wall insulation, but my new cunning plan will overcome that problem – wired networking! It’s something I remember from a long time ago and believe it used to be very reliable and secure. Just waiting for the cable and tools to arrive from eBay. Heard that the Welsh government are going to put £30M into providing electric car charger points, amazing seeing that we can’t get over 20meg broadband!
We had a visitor in the garden last week – a thumping great ewe. I’d left the gate open and she took the opportunity to see what we have been doing to the bungalow recently. Needless to say, many sheep based texts flew over the airwaves between my sister and I.
I made a mini picnic table before the move as a squirrel feeding station, but having seen the antics of the intended host, I decided to just screw it into one of its favourite trees where it tends to sit and eat. Glad to see it took only three days to get used.
While changing some mains sockets yesterday, I finally accepted that the builder had never heard of, or ignored the fact that cables should be run under capping in walls. Thus all ours are firmly located and the walls will need channeling out if anything goes wrong. I purchased a cable/metal locator from Lidl which is so insensitive, it fails to detect a cable when placed directly on it! It works better as a metal detector and can detect a radiator before it actually touches it. I feel a letter coming on.
As the proud owner of a smart meter, I have been waiting for the local display thing to arrive after contacting SSE in August. They were quick in contacting me to ask for payment, prior to us setting up direct debit. Unfortunately and rather worrying, I looked at my usage this week and shock horror, July to September are showing as estimates while there is nothing showing since. They are still taking my money though. An email has been sent with the question “what’s occurring” as they do say here.
Bought a 50m strand of Christmas lights for the bungalow. While avoiding frostbite in finger tips, they now stretch 3/4 around the building. Made the mistake of getting the time clock setting wrong and had to sort it out at 22:30 as the flashing lights illuminated my bedroom. Time switch resolved AND lights have to be set to constant when they come on at 16:00. Why can’t the controllers have a memory function. I feel a re-design coming on for next year.
Ah well off to get speckled with paint in the guest room. I am beginning to feel like those people who miss daylight in Winter with SAD syndrome. My version is Sleep After Diy ZZZzzz……
