home and garden – Page 5

August 24, 2005

Hello Amsterdam, my name is Fernando

I’m off to the Netherlands this afternoon to visit a trade show in Boskoop tomorrow. I’ve got a few meetings lined up with the great and good of European and American horticulture – a real encouragement to find that, after two and a half years of doing this, the biggest companies now make a point of talking to me at these events to see what I have to offer them. When I started out it was more a case of me banging on their doors and saying "hey! talk to me!"
My mum is coming over to keep H company. H is worried about being on her own whilst 18 weeks pregnant. I’m not sure that there is really anything to worry about, as the pregnancy has been running smoothly of late (just the usual tiredness to contend with and the fact that none of Hels’s clothes fit anymore), but if it reassures H then it’s fine by me.
Maybe H needs practical help looking after the cats. We’re cat-sitting for the in-laws at the moment, and it isn’t something that I plan to repeat as she (Kitty, the in-laws’ cat) persistently picks fights with Monty and Treacle who are so soft and mild-mannered that they don’t know what to do (other than be frightened).
I really should mow the lawn before I head to the airport. Nah, it can wait.

More exciting blog entries soon, kids! Blimey, this is getting boring, isn’t it? perhaps it’s time for another one of those long airport rambles?

August 16, 2005

Working environment

During the rather pleasant warm and sunny weather that we are experiencing at the moment, my company moves to its summer office – the table in the garden.
working outdoors
I have to shuffle around as the sun (apparently – pedants!) moves across the sky in order to keep the laptop screen in the shade of the canopy so that I can see what I’ve typed, and every now and then I get a cat wandering across my workspace. But these are small prices to pay.

August 15, 2005

More plumbing

It’s fixed. Our man collected the part we needed this morning by arranging to intercept the courier at a motorway services at 7.30am. So top marks to him. It was all fixed by 10.30, although I had to drive to Crawley to fetch a key needed to refill the thing before I could switch it on.
But hurrah! Hot water! Baths! Showers! No more bad smells!
(No money either – very skint now).

August 12, 2005

More on plumbing

Well, we now know that the replacement heat exchanger, replacement seals and fitting for the boiler will cost us an additional £270, bringing the total bill for this problem to £350. Hmm. And the earliest it will get done is Monday morning, possibly Tuesday if the part does not arrive in time.
So I’m going to focus on the cricket (Sussex are doing well against Gloucestershire) and try not to think about it too much.
In other news, I’m organising one of my plant fairs at Pashley Manor Gardens on Sunday. Please come along – I need to earn some cash to pay the plumber!

August 11, 2005

Plumbing update

The engineer arrived on time this morning. Amazing. And he was a really nice chap too.
The problem is a split in the heat exchanger. He’s isolated the boiler so that we can use the cold water system and he is going to give us a price to supply and install a replacement exchanger. Cost so far: £80. Urk.
I want hot water and I want it now!

August 10, 2005

Very blue

Ipomea flower
Blue flowers against a blue trellis. Either the best planting idea that I ever had, or the worst – depending on whether you like colours to blend or contrast.

August 9, 2005

…drip drip drip…

Uh-oh. Looks like we need a heating engineer. Our boiler is leaking steam and dripping water on to the floor. I’ve just positioned a bucket to catch the drips and switched it off to prevent it shorting itself (the water is dripping onto some of the cables at the bottom of the boiler).
UPDATE: the engineer should be here in not more than 90 minutes at the rate of £60 per hour plus parts and VAT (but no call-out charge). Yikes. I think we may have to look seriously at the cost of a contract to cover this sort of thing.
UPDATE: two-and-a-half hours later, the engineer has still not arrived. He has been "delayed" apparently, although I had to phone them to find that out. I can tell by the shocked expressions on your faces that you are amazed that a service supplier could give such poor delivery – me too!
FURTHER UPDATE: five-and-a-half hours after my original call, I’ve just had a call from the plumbers to say that the engineer won’t be here until tomorrow morning, some time between 9.30 and 10am. I’ve had to shut off the water at the mains as there is no way to isolate the boiler, so we now have no water for anything. Great. And I was going to go out for a curry tonight and have had to call it off so that I can clean up.
At least there is beer in the fridge, so I’m not without something to drink.
YOU GUESSED IT: now expected sometime "early this afternoon".
26 HOURS AFTER THE ORIGINAL CALL: I’ve just told them where to go, in no uncertain terms. If you ever have the opportunity to deal with a company going by the name of ReactFast Plumbing and Heating Engineers, avoid them at all costs. I don’t think it is reasonable to keep telling a client that you will be there in 60-90 minutes when clearly that is not the case.
I’ve just called a local CORGI-registered self-employed chap. Much better. He talked through the problem with me and immediately arranged to be here first thing tomorrow morning, between 8 and 8.30am. We shall have to prove the pudding by eating, but I’m much more optimistic. In the meantime, I haven’t had a shower (H has been to her gym), so I’d steer well clear if I were you.

May 31, 2005

Still here

…and still battling to keep on top of tasks. A series of largely sleepless nights hasn’t helped either, but that’s a good excuse to get a jug of coffee on the go.
Meanwhile, the garden is progressing nicely…
The garden at the side of the house. There's a lot of blue.

May 3, 2005

Motor woe

My car broke down today. Thanks to Big Brother, I managed to get it to my parent’s home. He’s going to replace the thermostat switch which has failed, resulting in overheating and loss of coolant when I got caught in a horrendous traffic jam surrounding a lorry accident on the A27 this afternoon. Gah.

April 19, 2005

Out of control

This morning, I have mostly been dribbling and spilling tea down my front.
Maybe because I’m so excited about our new watering can.
can