Water and Ice

I was going to blog about this last night, but luckily I had already packed my laptop ready to come to the office today (monday being the day I pop in for a meeting or two). Last night I was not in a good mood (to put it mildly).

Last year we got a plumber in to fit out new bath, toilet and wash basin. Less than 6 months later the bath tap fell became loose and a few weeks ago it fell off entirely. This would be alright if they were the kind that you could fix from above, but it required pulling out the bath to get at and we didn't manage to put it back on. That and the fact that we haven't had a shower for a year prompted us to get in another plumber to fit the shower and fix the tap. We weren't too impressed with the last plumber so decided to go with a different company. The plumber arrived on Friday, told us the other plumber had made a complete hash of fitting the taps and then proceeded to promptly fix everything. We were very impressed with his speed and efficiency. 2 days later an entire bathfull of water flowed through the floorboards and into the dining room, coming through the light fitting and above the window. When we took the bath panel off we found that the pipe that the water is supposed to drain into had completely come away from the pipe attached to the plug. Now admittedly he could not have left it in such a ridiculous state because we have used the bath since he left, but he cannot have checked that it was fitted properly before he left. Unfortunately it appears that there was little holding these two pipes together in the first place. So... is it hte fault of the plumber who came a year ago and didn't attach the two pipes together properly or the fault of the plumber who came last week and dislodged the pipes when he moved the bath? Luckily the damage was minimal - being only to the wallpaper and carpet which we intend to replace next year anyway. Had it not been, whose insurance should it have come out of and who should we get to fix the two pipes together?

Both ponds iced over completely for the first time this morning. I was surprised how quickly it happened given the size of the large pond - I thought we would have a day or two with a thin surface of ice first, but this was quite thick. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo in the rush before work, but will do so next time it happens.