* 15 Jan 2010 CALL ME MRS MOPP

15 Jan 2010.
Last Great Cold Snap UK 2010 Bulletin 15 Jan
subtitle: CALL ME MRS MOPP

BACKGROUND:Without heat or hot water since New Year's Day. Living in primitive conditions since then, trying to keep warm and clean.
Our heating engineers, salty workmen, who watch far too much UKTV Food channel in their off hours, finally finished installing the new boiler and re-plumbing the radiators.... See More
Robert Robin update further down ...

WEATHER REPORT - Just below freezing last night, and due to maximise today at 6C with 24 hours rain. The Great Thaw has begun.

CALL ME MRS MOPP
Always look on the bright side of life. That's one of my cliches.
So this is the bright side:
The heating is fantastic. Radiators dangerously hot to the touch. Very efficient. Fantastic feeling to switch off the space heaters and the gas fire.

And this is the dark side:
"The Glass is always half full... because the other half just slopped out when I fell over," is my other saying. (Though I do have my Beginners Crutchwork certificate - hence I am officially allowed to call myself a Ninja-Granny and don't often fall over anymore)

So our glass is half full, not because I fell over, but because the new pipes installed for the heating are twice as wide in diameter as the old pipes.
... Did you say, "So what?"
Water pressure, that's what.
And of what interest is Pressure? I'll tell you..

If you send twice as much water as usual into an old pipe it puts the old pipe, and all it's joints and valves and googlesprockets and thingus's under huge pressure... And usually something's got to give..

And it did. Twice

1) The hot water connection to the shower is now so dominant that it pushes out the cold water in the mixer.
You can have a boiling hot shower. Or, you can have an ice-cold shower. No 1 daughter got caught in a very, very hot shower (Am I being nasty when I say it's her fault for dashing to the shower before old Ninja-stix could get there).

Then the pressure was so great that it pulled the shower attachment clean off the wall, and the shower hose made like a Chinese Dragon at New Year's, writhing and humping, spraying water all over the bathroom.
No 1 daughter, who had been scalded and then attacked with a writhing, random hot spray had a major tantrum. The air turned blue, passing jets reported audio interference and the Richter scale registered 5 when her bedroom door slammed.

If I thought that having one lovely, great tantrum myself would help in the slightest, I'd throw a goodie; the best, believe me.

I put my wellies on and grabbed the mop...

So our dreams of having lovely warm showers and shampooing our hair are curdled and sour.

2) The washine machine is situated before the kitchen sink hot tap. My dream of not having to boil 2 kettles to do the washing up was dashed when I turned the hot tap on in the sink, and noticed that my fluffy slippers were getting very damp...
The washing machine hot water connection had cracked and begun to leak.
I put on my wellies, again, and began to mop.

Admittedly mopping was helped by "Keef", who also went to the local deli at lunchtime and bought me back a pacifying pecan slice. Bless! ( I think he feared for his safety. He certainly kept an eye on the Ninja-stix)

So, water leaks over the kitchen floor slowly if we don't use the hot tap. And if we do turn the tap on it leaks very fast.

As we speak, our kitchen floor has every available bit of rag, old clothes and all spare towels laid out, sopping up the night's leak. And I'm about to go and sling them into the spin dryer and start again.

According to the plumbers we're now waiting for our Vicar landlord to OK calling in the plumbers to quote on new washing machine pipes and shower fittings.

ROBERT ROBIN UPDATE
Rubecula, Robert's wife, sat on her branch for a day but without Robert to control who eats at the bird-table, she didn't get much food. Yesterday she wasn't on her branch. Sadly, I think they have become tiny victims to The Great Cold Snap.

Portly, the Paunchy Pigeon has taken over the food table. He's not very bright, but he is very large, so he just sits on the table. Once his crop is full he continues to sit, eyes closing (OK nictitating slowly), dozing like an old man, hogging the table.

I chased Portly away a couple of times to give the other birds a chance, but he came back. I don't believe in interfering with nature,(much, anyway) so we can only wait to see who ends up in overall control of the table. I think Portly is too shtoopid to stay in charge for long.

Have a superlovely, delicious day my FL friend.
Hugs from the unwashed, unhappy Ninja-Granny x

Copyright author, 2010