Recently we have been visiting my mum after I have ‘been to school’ but today that proved difficult. Just over a week ago I noticed that our hot water cylinder had developed a leak. British Gas assessed the situation and confirmed that we needed a new water cylinder but before it could be replaced it needed to be built. Today was the day for it to be fitted and because we knew the work would take several hours we expected the engineers to arrive fairly early in the morning.

Lunch time arrived, the engineers had not.

After lunch I left for my afternoon of volunteering at my local school, helping children with their reading. I wasn’t needed for the whole afternoon so I phoned home to check on the engineer situation, they had only just arrived! Not wanting to disturb the work in progress by shuffling cars and vans around I chose to walk ‘the long route’ home and visit mum tomorrow instead.

Several hours later normal service had resumed, we had water, hot water and heating again.

Despite all these ongoing problems I pledge to walk 1000 miles in 2026.

On Monday I returned from a mini break in York, walking the glass trail, the walls and exploring the city beyond.

We returned home to find that we had an electrical problem, part of the electrics were off and the fridge and freezer had defrosted. We reset the trip switch but it tripped several times more that evening leading us to call out an engineer (we are covered by a service contract).

This meant that on Tuesday I was stuck in the house waiting for an electrician and gas service man. Being house bound led me to seeing this beauty in my garden. I wasn’t quick enough to capture him on the ground before he flew onto the fence.

Our electrical problem is inconclusive. After extensive tests the electrician thought it was the central heating pump causing the problem but when the gas engineer arrived he couldn’t find any faults and no matter what he tried he couldn’t replicate the problem that caused the switch to trip. We are left with an empty freezer that we are reluctant to restock and the niggling suspicion that it is the fridge/freezer that is at fault.

I will be sharing more about my travels soon, I am currently editing my photographs.

Grrr!

Hopefully normally service will be resumed soon…

This morning when I turned the key in my car ignition nothing happened… I was reminded that on Friday the car had been a bit sluggish starting and that I had taken it for a bit of drive on Saturday to boost the battery.

Now I was in a bit of a dilemma. How was I going to get to work on time? I considered a taxi but I thought it was unlikely that one would be available straight away at that time in the morning. I prevailed on the services of Mr C, although I had to wait for him to finish getting ready for work. I was a little hassled when I arrived at work with moments to spare.

I was left wondering how to go about arranging to get my car checked and fixed as I wasn’t entirely convinced the problem was the battery. Mr C checked the car when he got home and he decided it wasn’t a battery problem. That left me with two obvious choices to try; phone the garage for them them to pick it up and check it over or check my RAC cover. I did the latter and as I suspected I hadn’t opted for the home cover option. I chose to upgrade to the home cover option and a very nice gentleman appeared on my doorstop in less than an hour.

He asked me when I last drove it and I mentioned my Saturday drive and that it had been popped on and off the drive the day before (Mr C had been shuffling cars after visitors). Straight away he said your engine is flooded and then proceeded to fix the problem and tell me all the technical details of what causes the problem. Within ten minutes he had gone and I was left to decide what I might like for dinner…

The weekend before last, our washing machine decided to leak onto the kitchen floor. We had been experiencing a few other niggles with it and considering its venerable  age we decided it would be more economical in the long run to purchase a new one. We went to a local shop to order a new one and chose a convenient delivery slot. On the day of delivery, towards the end of the chosen slot the washing machine had not arrived… After a grumpy phone call the machine was eventually delivered and fitted. I am still working out how to use it

For a while I had been noticing that my blog page was running slow. On Monday it eventually displayed the dreaded ‘Error establishing a database connection’. I submitted a support ticket which usually leads to problem being fixed the next day. A week later, several emails and two phone calls later it is still not working. This evening I was told that I would have to phone back between 9am and 5pm.  In addition to the original problem I noticed that my FTP is inaccessible also.  I am terribly unimpressed.

The internet problems that I experienced a couple of weeks ago (for that you will have to see my blog when it is back) were never completely fixed. The connection keeps randomly dropping out. Another support call was made (4th October). The ISP again insisted it was the router that was the problem. So that would be the old router and also the new one I bought when the old one broke whilst undertaking all the tests the ISP required of us. The original problem was at the BT exchange, but I can’t be put in contact with BT until after I try a new router provided by the ISP. This will take three to five days to arrive.

Those minor niggles paled into insignificance when I received a phone call from Mr C towards the end of Friday afternoon. He had crashed his car on the way home, was I able to come and pick him up? Of course I was. It looks like the car is a write-off but most importantly Mr C is alright apart from being rather shaken up by the experience. When we arrived home after the incident I noticed an envelope poking out from the (inside) of our letter box. The words at the top said ‘Road Safety Team’. On closer inspection I found that it was a survey about parking related issues that may occur due to increased parking charges at our local hospital. Curious timing… Then Mr C opening another letter that had arrived, it was his car insurance documents that had been posted out to him after his recent renewal.

On Sunday Mr C decided to suss out which car he might like as a replacement. A salesman came out and introduced himself and said he would leave us alone to browse, but if we needed anything just to pop inside and ask. Mr C asked if any had caught my eye (they were all similar models). I pointed out the only one that had stood out to me. We went to find the salesman who got the key and let us look around it. Then Mr C took it for a test drive and it was like he had been driving the car for years. When we got back to the forecourt the salesman pointed out some of the cars features including a sensor on the front of the vehicle. He said that if the car in front slowed down or came to a halt the car would automatically brake. Mr C and I caught each other’s eye and fell about laughing.  Mr C then confessed to the recent demise of his previous car. The price of the car was too good to miss and a deal was done. Now all that is needed is to sort out the niggles of the previous car.

Update: This was posted yesterday on Cherie’s Other Place. My blog problem has now been fixed, but I need to do a bit more investigating regarding the FTP.

On further investigation after attaching a new router (today) it seems that further damage has been done.  The network now works but the internet is still not available…  Tech support were not responding, so it won’t get sorted until at least tomorrow at the earliest.  It will probably take even longer because first the service provider  have to do a check, then if the problem isn’t there it gets passed onto BT to see if the lines and exchange are working properly…

I have managed to get get a temporary connection using mobile broadband but it is slow, so no Flickr uploads, they are too large…  And for some reason it won’t let me comment on most Blogger blogs.  So please bear with me I will get back to commenting eventually, technology willing!