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.

Brown paper and a pillow case

Believe it or not that's what we were using to stop people seeing in the hall window for the last year (in the absence of any form of curtain). Finally we've splashed out and bought a curtain rail (though we've used a curtain from the spare room). I will now be able to match the pillowcases in pairs again. Hooray!!

The stairs

It's amazing how long it takes to 'get round' to doing things around the house. The previous occupant was in a wheelchair and as a result the stair carpet has always been missing a section due to her stairlift. When we arrived there was a roll of matching carpet left for us in the hall and yet it quickly journeyed to the loft, not to be seen again until this week. I remember thinking that it was a top priority for sorting out and yet we quickly got used to the missing section. All it took was a couple of hours to redo it. Admittedly it's not the neatest job, but it's only temporary until we redecorate the stairs and landing. It does make the house feel much cosier.

Christmas

Is it just me or has Christmas come particularly early this year? I have to admit that Ian and I been singing Christmas songs for at least 2 weeks and the Christmas things we've bought haven't actually made it into storage until December. Still, I was most surprised to see that Otter Nurseries had a wide range of Christmas trees available yesterday. Today we visited Bernaville Nurseries for the first time and they too had Christmas trees (though admittedly theirs were live in pots). Driving to the nursery we saw a house with Christmas decorations up outside - the big inflatable santa variety. Is it the same where you are?

An introduction

I'm very pleased to introduce you to the latest member of our household - Snowball. We got him from Otter Nurseries last week, and he's been in the lounge ever since.

Pickles

Today we pickled some of our beetroots and very pleased we are too.

Halloween

Like my father I'm not fond of trick or treaters, but I do enjoy carving pumpkins for halloween. As a child if we could not afford a pumpkin we would carve a swede (not as easy as a pumpkin, but they still look pretty good). A couple of years ago we got a pumpkin carving set - consisting of some little saws and a tool for scraping out the pumpkins. They're very accurate and easy to use.

Last year Halloween came just after we got William and Ian decided to do a cat pumpkin. This became known as Williamkin and then I liked the name so much that I began to call William Williamkin.


This year we had smileykin (I've never done star-shaped eyes before and after I did he seemed to want a smiley mouth)


and otterkin: