Uh-Oh

I have started down the slippery slope..

The hall ceiling has a crack in it (in the loft there is actually a boot print on the back of the plasterboard where someone has slipped off the truss and stood on it). The last people seem to have tried to cover it, but the ceilings are artex it's impossible to repair invisibly so it just draws attention to it.

I'd been considering this action for some while, but I know once you have started you can't stop so for months I have resisted.

But there I was yesterday in Wickes (they seem to be doing pretty well out of me of late) had to have a couple of gates and some posts delivered anyway as there are limits to what even I can get in a Fiesta and it was beckoning with it's siren call. Yes, I am talking pine cladding...

Now the 70's die is cast, give it 18 months and the whole place will have pine ceilings as well as cork floors, I can just feel it, and I have a sudden resurgence of interest in macrame....

Time travel makes your head hurt

That's about it, just a general observation.

Sitting in Sainsbury's waiting for lunch trying to work out last nights Stargate (last two episodes series 8) Where the team go back to ancient Egypt using a recently found Ancient time travel device (that's Ancient with a capital 'A' not small 'a') and excitingly mess up

Using the 'trouser leg of time' theory we had three Jack O Neils, ditto Sam Carters and Teal'cs but only two Daniel Jacksons (one having been shot by one of the Teal'cs for having a go'uld in his head).

Did we end up with the 'right' ones? I figured in the end we did, even if not quite the ones we started with.

But like I said it made my head hurt.. These writer Johnnys must be very clever, or take a lot of Ibuprofen..

Vacuum

Reading about my friend Scott's new shopvacs, I had thought about telling you about mine, now I will!

In a somewhat different league (to put it mildly) I am still pretty pleased. Not that it stops me drooling over the big proper jobs..

For home use I use two very good and expensive German cleaners (Sebo if you're interested) One upright and one Cylinder they are superb and great at what they are designed to do (get the house CLEAN with no fuss). Designed for the the Bavarian Hausfrau, like them they will stand for no messing about..

However I have recently found one thing the cylinder is no good at at all, namely clearing up building rubble and detritus. Oh it makes a manful attempt but within two minutes the scientifically designed multi phase filter paper bag is clogged, the big orange light comes on and it's goodnight Vienna. Expensive and inconvenient (and then no good at what it's meant for)

So I did a quick bit of research (a flash way of saying I looked up a few websites) and came up with the Wickes wet'n'dry. It looks like R2D2's low budget idiot cousin on a VERY bad day and makes the average Air Force jet sound quiet. But it's under £40 and will suck up anything.

Rude and crude it's just a big motor in a plastic bucket with a few badly made tools. When you switch it on it actually kicks around in the direction of the motor rotation and the exhaust from it is so extreme you really can believe it is some sort of secret jet weapon, a *man's* cleaner :-) Nothing is safe from it's voracious appetite and it fits the bill perfectly. I love the thing. .

And now my refined German cleaners can heave a sigh of relief and go back to what they are meant to be doing..

sod'em

Like Kate and Jim suggested I have been thinking about it, and every one of you are right, I can't let some half wit win, he doesn't like me? Tough! Sincerely thank you all for your comments, I shall try and thicken the skin. I'm thinking I'm a bit mid life crisis-y anyway and it's time I pulled myself out of it.

This decision was come to last night while two thirds of the way through a bottle of Australian Riesling and while listening to one of my four favorite David Bowie albums (Diamond Dogs) A bit of death madness and genocide always puts me in a good mood :-)

Also yesterday was partly a lovely day (apparently it showed while I was in the garage refinishing yet another door, but I didn't see it so it doesn't count)

Earlier on I had been cleaning out the gutters as water was pouring from them in all the wrong places whenever it rained heavily (this is Wales, it's a miracle when it *doesn't* rain heavily).

I can see that many would not be keen on this, but it's so close to making mud pies I think its fun and really cheered me up. Apart from being up a ladder and the bright red boiler suit (I wanted a convict style orange one but couldn't find one on eBay) I could have been a kid again though I have heard kids don't make mud pies any more...

When I clean down all the outside 'paintwork' (it's all upvc but 'plasticwork' doesn't make any sense) in a few weeks, I shall have to reinstall all the said guttering as someone doesn't seem to have grasped which way it should slope, but in the meantime it's reasonably clean and hopefully the water will no longer cascade from the wrong end.

Hopefully now I can get back into the swing of posting but in the meantime I *must* do some work..

So Long

This is my last post, I had thought I was doing a fun blog, just a bit of light hearted chat, but after a rather unpleasant mail to John I see that is not the case.

I may be thin skinned but I get really upset by comments like that by people who don't even know me. My fault, I see it now, but it won't happen again.

And for you nice people, thanks it was nice knowing you.

Computers, a short whine.

I would have posted over the weekend, I intended to. I'd written what I thought was a pretty good post on Roxy Music and early glam rock.

Then in spite of supposedly 'autosaving' every minute or so it went, just disappeared, gone, finito. Maybe I really should write in Wordpad then just copy it to blogger when I'm done.

But this computer is going through one of it's flakey periods, it does this every now and then, you ask it to do something (like open a browser window, something difficult like that...) and it just sits there, and sits, and sits.. eventually I get bored and restart, then it loses the mouse so you restart again. This time it's the keyboard. By the time I'm on the 5th restart I've got bored and gone off to watch TV.

I tried Linux, but command lines just aren't me (I can't remember even the simple ones). 

Ubuntu (it just works) doesn't. It fell at the first hurdle, it won't work with my ultra exotic (not) Netgear WiFi card, that's pretty basic. 

I'd rather chew earwigs then use Vista. (I'd need a new computer to give me a marginally prettier desktop and a supernanny attitude, I'd end up booting it).

I guess I could go Apple, but they always seem so smug (though I'd put up with that for an updated Cube) and I refuse to buy from a company that charges the same in Pounds as they do in Dollars (we're not at parity - yet) especially when the goods are made in China anyway.

I'm stuck with my flaky XP for now I guess.  Of course there is the new windows. I won't hold my breath.

One of those days

I love those days when I have planned exactly what I am going to do, it's all listed in my head and I get through the lot. The sense of achievement is amazing :-)

Actually when I *have* a list I do usually get through it, it's just the deciding on what goes on it in the first place that's the problem, and when I don't? Then I end up flopping around for the day like a grounded fish.. or so it seems.

But yesterday all the washing was done (I wash on Sunday, no idea why, or perhaps it's truer to say Mr Miele does, but that's splitting hairs).. the house is clean..

And I have made a good start on the internal doors.

This place has that love of the 70's, Sapele doors (kind of like teak). It's pretty unusual in having them throughout, they were only normally used in the hall/reception space the rest being standard painted doors to save cash. One of the cool things about them of course is the fact they don't need painting ( painting flat doors is a real skill in itself if you wanted to avoid drips and runs and for them to look any way decent)

These things are real quality, while the sapele is a veneer they are solid throughout, no egg box filling here, they weigh a ton. I absolutely horrified my neighbour by telling her I like them and was keeping them. Hers have long since gone down the dump to be replaced by pressed hardboard moulded to look like panels (and *grain* for some reason) like 99% of modern houses. Admittedly sapele looks a bit corporate and office like, but they are absolutely of the period - like me!

Of course after 30 years they have picked up some biffs and scrapes which is to be expected, what isn't is getting paint from doing the frames on them (and not even trying to remove it). But 60 mins each with my cheap new half sheet sander and three coats of matt lacquer and they are looking good. Two down 14 to go...