The boiler man cometh...

Well - the man is here doing noisy things in the kitchen. It has been 23 days since the boiler first broke down, and we have learned to cope with being cold. I have unearthed my old satin quilt and bought a new fleecy, furry throw to go over the top. I have a pile of bedding about a foot thick. I've also gone back to wearing slippers, instead of my more usual flip-flops for indoors.


I have been making knitted squares for ages, and had intended to end up with a throw for my bed, but at the weekend I realised I had enough squares to make a baby blanket for Tori. The pictures show a single square, four squares joined to make a motif , the crochet edging I invented myself, and the final blanket (draped over the piano, in case you were wondering what sort of weird furniture I have).

The blanket is a beautiful rich cream colour, which doesn't really come across in the photographs (one of the perils of photography under indoor lighting). I have really enjoyed knitting this, and stopping at this point means I have an actual finished piece, which should keep the new baby warm when he is born.

I still think it is very strange to know the sex of an unborn baby - when I had my own babies, we didn't even have ultrasound scans unless there was a suspected problem. Now scans are a matter of fact part of normal procedure, and many young women (including Tori) have three-dimensional scans too, which are loaded onto a DVD for them to keep.

The boiler is fixed! And the engineer showed me how to use the thermostat as well, which will be a useful skill. The house is starting to warm up at last, and I can take off my Bob Cratchit mittens.

A night at the opera

To the O2 last night for Carmina Burana. Bex had given me tickets for xmas, so I took her with me to see it of course. The music was fantastic, but the staging was odd for the most part, degenerating into the hilarious towards the end. There were fireworks and other pyrotechnics; stiltwalkers and dancers, and an inflatable pig at one point. Great fun and I love "O Fortuna", which started and ended the piece (and was the encore, too). I've never been to a classical concert or opera in a large arena before. The sound was remarkably good from where we were sitting (on the lower slopes) and we had a good view of the white-haired conductor and the orchestra. The soloists were excellent, but I felt that the choir could have been bigger.

Its still cold at home. No news on the boiler front. We are now going into the fourth week with no heating or hot water. It's becoming a little wearing.

Incredibly bad traffic this morning. A combination of roadworks, bad weather and a road accident in the Blackwall Tunnel meant that traffic came to pretty much of a standstill in most of south-east London. I waited ages for a bus that didn't arrive and ended up having to grab a taxi (and pay the exorbitant fare) in order to be very late for a meeting at work. (And I wasn't the last to arrive). I have a much longer journey planned tomorrow, so I guess I'll head out at the crack of dawn in order to make sure I arrive at lunchtime!

First culture of the year

Had to do two teaching observations at the same place yesterday. Unfortunately there was a five-hour gap between them. Although five hours sounds like a lot of time, it wasn't enough to get back to my office and do anything useful before it would be time to leave again for the second observation. So what to do?

I walked across Tower Bridge for the first time since I was a child. I remember being really scared when the middle section wobbled and rattled, thinking the bridge might open up while I was on it. It felt much less wobbly than I remember. Maybe that's a function of age, or maybe the shock absorbers are better these days.
You can still see the water in the gap between the two opening parts of the bridge. I have seen the bridge open, but very rarely.


On the other side of the water, I hopped on a river bus to the Tate Modern, and went to the Rothko exhibition, which was great. I really like Rothko.

The turbine hall of the building always has a free exhibition, usually some type of installation on a grand scale, and the current exhibition has a number of interesting pieces, including a reproduction of Louise Bourgeois's "Maman".

You can see the scale by looking at the little people in the photo I took from the second floor gallery. I think I was really brave to get this close to this particular piece. You who know me will know why.

I had time to look around the rest of the free galleries, but was only struck by one piece:30 pieces of silver, which was really beautiful.

Decided to have lunch in the top floor restaurant, and ordered posh fish and chips. It looked lovely. Golden chips and crisp battered haddock. Sadly, the batter was so crisp that it shattered when I tried to cut it, rendering it uneatable. The fish inside the batter was nondescript, and the chips were just okay, not as good as they looked. I should have gone to the cafe on the ground floor, where I had a really good lunch last time I was at the Tate. That will teach me to try to go upmarket. In future I will "know my place".

Still freezing....

No word about the part for the boiler. With the little electric heater on, plus everything else that gives out heat (TV, computer, all the lights etc) we are just about able to get the living room temperature up to 17 degrees (18 if we have the oven on in the kitchen for hours - but this is only practical if we are cooking casseroles - not something we do every day). It is ridiculous that I am typing this wearing a fleecy jacket, a scarf and fingerless gloves in my living room.

My cheer-up note for today: the new pouffe has arrived: beautiful gold metallic leather, and while trying to crop the photograph, I discovered by accident that I have Microsoft picture manager already installed on the computer. (Up till now when I have tried to edit a picture, it has always by default opened in Paint - which is useless for what I need (generally cropping and sharpening / brightening)). I have now reset the default so that photographs open in a useful programme, but its only taken me a year or so to work this problem out. Shame on me.

still cold but getting closer to civilisation

The new DLR extension is open! We are closer to the world than we used to be. There is a coffee bar right next to the entrance, but it is a horrible Costa, so I still won't be dropping in for a coffee on my way back across the river. (I only like Starbucks latte, and it has to be full-fat milk. I like their chunky cups, too).



Still waiting to hear whether our boiler pump is in stock. In the meantime, contingency plans are in place. Took up the offer of a hot shower and hairwash at Tori's place, and Bex bought a little electric radiator to take the chill off the living room.

Making sea pie for dinner today (that will warm us up). Don't know why it is called sea pie, as it is a kind of beef casserole, and has no fish or seafood in it. One family theory is that it was made on board ship, and the dumpling crust sealed all the liquid into the pan so that it wouldn't slop over the sides as the ship rolled about at sea. I don't recall any sailors in the family tree, so I don't know whether that theory has any truth at all, but the dish is delicious.

Sea Pie

Start with about a pound of minced beef, four medium carrots and 2 or 3 medium onions (depending on how much you like onions).

Coarsely chop the carrots and onions fairly small, but not tiny - you want to still have recognisable pieces of carrots and onions after the dish is cooked.

Mix the raw meat with the raw vegetables and pile into a casserole dish. Cover with stock (I use two Oxo cubes, and sometimes slosh in a drop of red wine if I have a bottle open).

Put a lid on the pan, and cook in the oven at gas 5-ish for at least 2 hours (you can't skimp on the cooking time. You want the flavour to be really intense and the liquid to reduce, and you only get this with long cooking).

Then make dumplings: use 6 ounces of flour and 3 ounces of suet (beef or vegetarian, but vegetarian doesn't really make sense in this context) and a pinch of salt. Throw in some dried herbs if you like. I used a spoonful of sage today. Mix with enough cold water to make a stiff dough (mix with a fork, but don't overwork it - you will probably need just a few tablespoons of water). Take the lid off the casserole. Put spoonfuls of the dumpling mix on top of the meat mixture and turn the gas up to no 7 for about 20 minutes until the dumplings are golden. (Leave the lid off the casserole for the dumpling stage).

You can serve it as it is, or with boiled potatoes and / or cabbage (Savoy is good). This will serve three or four people with reasonable appetites.

Enjoy

Friday and freezing

Well, the engineer came on Tuesday and said "Hmmm .. water pressure problem". He fiddled about inside the boiler for a few minutes and all seemed to be well. Slowly the house (and I) began to warm up. By the time it was warm enough to stick my head under a tap, it was also a bit late, so I decided to leave the hair-washing until Wednesday morning. Bad idea. Woke up on Wednesday and lo and behold -the boiler had broken down again overnight. Phoned the engineers and was told that the first available time they could come out again would be Thursday, and sorry, they couldn't give "timed" appointments - one of us would have to wait in all day (and take a day off from work in order to do so).

So off I went to work on Wednesday. Had to travel down to Maidstone for a meeting - what is it with Maidstone? I stood at the bus stop (in snow) for a number 82 for 35 minutes, then finally had to give up and get a taxi. Coming back from the meeting, I spotted a bus sitting at the stop outside the building. Got on, asked how much the fare was to the station, paid my fare, asked to be told when I needed to get off, then was told by the driver that he wouldn't be moving from the stop for 20 minutes. He told me there would be two more buses arriving (and leaving again) within that 20 minutes, but no, he was sorry, I wouldn't be able to transfer my ticket as the other buses were a different route number. Finally, we got going. The bus took a different route from the taxi, but I wasn't surprised by this. What did surprise me was that we crossed over a river. My taxi to the meeting hadn't crossed a river . I asked the bus driver once again to tell me where I needed to get off for the station, only to be told "We passed the station a long way back on the other side of the river. You should have got off then." When I protested that I hadn't seen the station, he said "Well of course, it's around the back of the one-way system." When I explained that I wasn't local to Maidstone, and that my asking to be told when to get off the bus indicated that I didn't KNOW where to get off, he just shrugged and said "You didn't tell me you didn't know the area".

I bit back the caustic comments I could have made and crossed the road to catch another bus back across the river. Whilst waiting to cross the road, I witnessed what I can only describe as sexual bullying. A group of young teens in school uniform were waiting to cross the road when an older boy ran up, grabbed one of the younger boys' trousers and yanked them right down to the ground, then ran off. This was shocking. It was a main street, in full view of the public, and (probably more importantly to this young man) in full view of his group of school friends, which included two or three girls. There had been a Panorama programme on TV on Monday of this week which investigated sexual bullying in schools. Coincidences are strange.

The only good thing about Maidstone buses is that the fares are cheap. My two bus journeys in Maidstone came to less than one single journey would have cost back in London. London bus fares may be higher, but nearly every bus now has a "speaking route" where a voice tells you which stop the bus is approaching. Bus stops all also have their location writ large upon them. It's hard to get lost on a London bus. Easy to get lost on a Maidstone bus.

On a day of huge problems on the railway network, the four trains I had to take on Wednesday were all on time, all warm, and I was able to get a seat on every one. Remarkable. I got home and wrapped myself up in the duvet to keep warm.

On Thursday, I couldn't take time off work for the boiler engineers as I had an important meeting scheduled, so Bex had to take a day's leave. The engineer came and did some more fiddling inside the boiler and got it working. The house gradually warmed up again. In the meantime, I got to work and checked my voicemail, to find a message from the person I was supposed to be meeting, cancelling because of ... wait for it.. boiler problems! Another coincidence?

So it's Friday morning now and guess what? Yes - the boiler has broken down again. A new pump is on order, but it is unlikely to be ready for fitting until next week. In the meantime, we will have no heating and no hot water for a second weekend, and most likely into the middle of next week. I'll have to bite the bullet and stick my head under the cold tap.

Still cold

Three days now with no heating and last night was the coldest of the winter so far. I hope the engineer will come today. My neck and shoulders are very tense (this happens when I get cold) and my knees ache. I want to wash my hair, but we have no hot water. I boiled a kettle to wash dishes yesterday, but that won't work for hair washing.

Came downstairs this morning to find a card from the post office by the front door: "We tried to deliver a package but it would not fit through your letter box". They LIE - no-one knocked on the door to try to deliver any such package - Bex and I were both here, and surely one of us would have heard the doorknocker. This now means that one of us will have to go to the depot (a 20-minute bus ride away) to pick up this package (and hope it is not huge and heavy). there are so-called alternatives: you can try to arrange a redelivery, either by phone or by going to the website. However, this does not work. The online bookings are clearly not checked very often, as you only get an acknowledgement of your booking AFTER the date you have specified for redelivery and AFTER you have taken time off work to wait in for a redelivery that has not happened because the online booking was not logged in time. The phone line has an irritatingly cheerful automated reply which takes a long time to tell you that the best way of getting your package is to collect it from the depot or make an online booking for a redelivery(!). If you are determined, and go through the "please press x.." rigmarole several times to try to speak to a real person, you are finally put through to a line at the depot which is engaged. When you try again (you have to go through the "please press.." exercise again, of course), the depot phone rings for 20 minutes (possibly longer - after 20 minutes, you have had enough). Has the person who was clearly speaking to someone else on the phone when you rang the first time left the building? Is there no one else who could answer the phone? Are you in a queuing system? There is no way of knowing. This is incredibly frustrating, and despite knowing all this, I still tried phoning the depot.


A couple of hours later, a postperson did knock, with two small packages. We are expecting several more packages, so the problem now is, was this morning's failed delivery actually redelivered without us asking, or was this later delivery a completely separate delivery? Do we still need to go to the depot to pick up the first one? The postperson just handed me the the packages and dashed off (not responding to my forlorn call of "er -- excuse me......" ). Maybe I was too slow off the mark, or maybe she didn't hear me). Of course, we can't phone the depot to enquire........

It's cold

It's cold today. The boiler has broken down (and this is a new boiler). No chance of contacting an engineer till tomorrow. Thank goodness for double glazing - at least we should stay above outdoor temperature. I wish I had been more disciplined about my knitting project (a fancy woollen throw), as I could have wrapped myself up in it, but it is only one-third complete. I am pleased with the way it looks though, and the final result will look great draped across my bed (and even greater draped across the new bed I want to get as part of my redesign). I'm thinking of going for an old iron bedstead (an old hospital bed on wheels is favourite at the moment) and trading in my fifties - style dressing table for either victorian wood or Japanese lacquer (not sure which, but either would mis-match nicely). Or I might paint or gild the one I have. I've seen gilded furniture, which looks spectacular. Hmm... maybe pewter-leaf, if there is such a thing.

This year's tree

Only a couple more days until the tree has to come down and be thrown out. This year we need to make sure we ask the council to come and take it away. Last year's got put ouside in the garden and stayed there until the summer. It was taken over as a hiding place by Wookie, even after it had lost all its greenery. We finally chopped it up to make space for the barbecue. Wookie was very upset. This year I have kept the tree very simple - I never have tinsel, but this year I have stuck with just gold and glass. I was worried about how to get tree chocolates to fit in with the scheme (tree chocolates are a must, or Bex gets upset), but on a trip to Marylebone High Street discovered the perfect tree chocolate - can you tell which one it is?


They were pricier than usual, but as always, I go for the look of the thing. Luckily, they taste good.


It will be a shame to lose the tree, as it still looks great. The needles haven't dropped, and the branches are still springy and fresh.

I experimented for a few years with artificial trees (one year was the legendary "bottle-brush" version, and I had a huge white tree for a few years until it turned grey with dust which was impossible to clean off), but it seems that real trees, which look and smell so good, are actually more environmentally friendly than fake ones anyway, and don't take up valuable space in storage. The only difficulty is in getting the tree home. Bex did a fantastic job of bringing this year's tree home (single-handedly) on the bus. And then did the decorating, too! Tree chocolates were well-deserved.

Art

I have an urge to put some art into the loo. An iPod -ad style image is appealing. It needs photoshopping, which I can't do, but Bex can. Here's an example on mediatinker. I think a lime-green background would work well, with maybe an image of all four family iPod users.

20 by 365

I realise that I need to have more space available for the 20 by 365 project, so I have set up a new site just for that (see link in sidebar). I will post each day's 20 words on this blog too.

Random item for today:


I have a fondness for the Mobius band,and found this "Mobius Battle" while looking through back issues of the xcdc comic:

Battle of the fridge

This was first published on facebook a couple of days ago, but as that application keeps failing, I have decided to paste it here, for posterity. Comments from the original posting have been lost in transferring,sorry.

So there I am looking at the large carton of lemon and ginger smoothie (unopened but suspiciously bulgy) when the fridge door suddenly drops onto my foot - again! This is a large fridge (as tall as me) and the door pivots on two tiny screws - one top and one bottom. The one at the top is located in place with a bracket, but the one at the bottom is not. There is about an eighth of an inch of thread on this little bottom screw - clearly a disaster waiting to happen. When the screw undoes itself, the whole door drops down, (but not off - as it is held at the top by the little aforementioned bracket). We now have a free-swinging (on one point) heavy, five-foot tall fridge door, loaded with assorted milk, juice and smoothie cartons, bottles of vodka, jars of chilli sauce, olives, eggs etc (you get the picture - its five days after xmas). I am alone in the house. The fridge door has dropped down enough so that it cannot close. I am holding on to it with one hand to stop it from breaking the top bracket and beginning to worry. I have to reach into the fridge left-handed and unload the door one thing at a time - all the while sweating that the bracket at the top might break and bring the whole edifice crashing down on me. I soon have a circle of various liquidy things on the floor around me (can’t reach the work surface AND keep hold of the fridge door, which I am trying to support with one hand, so that it doesn’t twist too far and break the top bracket). Once the door is empty I can breathe a bit (it weighs less and bottles aren’t going to fall out and break around me now). I have to try to fix this thing now by lifting UP the door with my left hand while trying to locate the screw hole UNDERNEATH the door at the bottom with my right hand. Did I say this was a big door? I am at full stretch in both directions. Suddenly, there is a “clunk”. The door has seated itself correctly. I now take a chance and let go of the door (while leaning into it with a shoulder-brace) and try to screw up the little screw. It turns twice. There is a slot in the head of the screw which is clearly meant for a screwdriver. However, this slot faces the floor and is about an inch and a half FROM the floor. Even the shortest, stubbiest screwdriver in the world will not fit in that gap. I improvise with a butter knife held sideways and get another turn on the screw. Miraculously, I have fixed the fridge door, and will not have to throw out the trifle and beef wellington. The smoothie was fine.

365 challenge

I decided to take up the "365 challenge", where you write a fixed number of words about a different person every day for a year. (See 40x365 for details of this).

I decided to go for 20 words instead of 40, as I am not so good at descriptions. It will be a challenge - do I know 365 people? (The rules say you can only write about people you have actually met). I will post the list on this page.

Happy New Year

Well, new year, new blog. I tried to do this on facebook, but the application kept failing, so I came back to a place I knew would work.

Resolutions for the year:

1. to finish my MA
2. to clear out my clutter (I must have about 100 black t-shirts - why?)
3. to spend far less money on magazines
4. to spend far more time on cultural activities

That's enough, I think.

Things I want to do this year to improve the quality of life at home: get a new cooker that doesn't wobble and where we don't need to close the grill cover with gaffer tape (actually, this is sounding much more urgent than I realised - should make it a priority); get a new tumble dryer that doesn't cover the whole house with dust; help Bex organise the study and install a zedbed so anyone who stays overnight will not have to sleep on the sofa; build a console table for the hallway; redesign my bedroom.

Bigger things I really want to do for myself: go to Paris for a few days in the spring; go to ALM conference in the summer (haven't been to this for a few years- too busy with newish job- and feel as if I am letting myself slip behind the international field a bit).

Happy New Year