Boiler Woe

Well, it had all been going frightfully well down in Highgate.

I should have known it couldn't last.....

All Jackie had left to do was get the central heating system flushed out and all would be ready for carpet fitting, which was due today.

Except Mr Nigel, our plumber, could get nothing more than a complete flat-liner from the boiler itself. It had expired. It's over eleven years old, and has simply past the point of economical repair.

So, a new boiler it is, then. Which of course won't arrive until all loyal plumbers merchants have finished celebrating the Diamond Jubilee.

It also means Tony snr will have to come back and make good the plasterwork around the new one, tidy the wall and box-in the new pipes.

Then we can paint the kitchen.

Again.

So lets hear a big Bronx Cheer for super-annuated heating equipment everywhere!

And I'm Back.......

Gordon Bennett, what a week.......

I have filled, rubbed, filled again, rubbed some more, emulsioned walls, and primed, undercoated and topcoated woodwork.

In white........

Just white...

And then painted white on white..

I left Jackie finishing off at the flat today at about 20.00 as I had to drive back to Fenland for work tommorrow.

I haven't been out much in daylight since last Sunday, so the return to a full chromatic scale was always going to be a challenge.

Nothing quite prepared me for the gorgeous hues of an early summer sunset, which brought out all the tonal richness of the green leaves of trees to the black tarmac road and all the joyous colours of the rainbow in between....

It helped that I had borrowed a jazz cd from Dad on my last visit and had the likes of 'Birdland', for the soundtrack.

Never has The North Circular looked, or sounded, lovelier............

Annual Leave

One of the nice things about working at The Hole Making Shop is the relatively generous annual leave allowance.

It sort of makes up for working like a dog the rest of the time.

It also gives us Holemakers the chance to rest, recuperate, and steady our hands for yet more record-breaking, target-busting hard-working all-star showband behaviour for which any thanks, recognition or simple pat on the back is more than conspicuous by it's complete absence....

But enough of that nonsense.

It's holiday time!!

WHOOPEE!

Now, decorating Jackie's studio flat in London may not be everyone's idea of vacation heaven, but it will have to do.

(The rebuild of the flat has taken much longer and cost a shed load more than we thought. However, it has made a nice little flat in a nice area into a proper-job fully insulated, re-wired, up to date and gorgeous living space.)

Or will do......... when I've finished it.....

Sighs. Dons overalls. Signs off.

:-)

What a load of Cob---blers.....

No, I have not been over-taxing the local shoe repair industry here in Fenland.

Rather, I have been following the story of Mr Asbo, the swan, in The Cambridge News.

Actually, it's really all quite reassuring.

I mean, here we all are, poised on the brink of global financial meltdown, facing the end of the Euro, and, therefore, The-World-As-We-Know-It, and what occupys the minds of the professional protesters of rent-a-mob?

A swan.

Yes.

He's been moved off the Cam, somewhere he and his brood can live in peace without fear of being annoyed by oarsmen.

BUT, an Anarchist organisation (I know, the non-sequitor warning indicator light is steady red....), calling itself Class War has threatened to disrupt the Cambridge Bumps (rowing races) in order to protest against the removal of Mr Asbo from these waters, the clipping of his wings to prevent his return, and generally to stick it to the bunch off 'toffs' and 'chinless wonders' (both appellations have been widely noised abroad in the paper's letters page) who row the river Cam.

I am a boater, not a rower.

Sometimes, some rowers have done silly things near the bows or stern of The Mighty Pippin which have caused me more than a few grey hairs. And yes, because of them, we avoid the upper Cam (above Baits Bite lock) during term-time weekends.

Instead we go all the way to Ely to pump out.

Do I hate them for it?

No.

It's just commonsense.

I like rowers. (Just not within 20 feet of Pippin's moving prow, or mucking around in our wash near the big bad mincer thingy.....)

A lot of complete idiots, of all colours of the political spectrum, have sought to use poor Mr Asbo as a weapon to beat the rowers, the University, the 'establishment' and even that benighted organisation of failure and doom, Camcon, with.

Just because some arrogant Australian self-publicist managed to halt the Boat Race, must we now put up with Dave Spart and his ilk jumping on the band wagon (band raft?) and bellowing obscenities from the bank?

Oh for God's sake, grow up!

You are beginning to piss me off.

(See earlier post 'The Boater's Prayer'.............)

:-)