What are you doing today?

[LovelyLadyLux]

Good to see you back and on the forums again H. I was down and out for a few days myself. This flu IS a definitely different. I'd be thrilled if they could develop a good vaccine that is going to really stop it but I guess, apparently, it mutates faster than they can develop a means to stop it.

Not totally sure what I'm doing today. Going to tonight to babysit the crew as the daughter and son-in-law have tickets to a Concert (given to them as a Christmas present by the other side who also gave a babysitting obligation) and the father in law has a Kidney stone. Don't want them to miss the concert so will go and watch everybody.

Doing laundry now but will have to think about what else is going to happen today as I don't want "laundry" to be the highlight of the morning.......hmmm - what to do? It is a light light drizzle out there and washing away the snow but with no sun I'm not yet motivated to go stroll out (yet).

[Grandad]

Woke up today to find another heavy overnight snowfall. Must have been at least 2 cm. The only good thing for us snappers is that the light is good and everywhere is picturesque. This is my view through the front bedroom window. For now I have this as my screen wallpaper.


I was at junior school through most of the war years. Rain, snow or shine, we would walk to school with gas mask over our shoulder, and I cannot ever remember school being closed. Right now virtually all schools in this area are closed. I suppose that with both parents working and children normally taken by car, that is inevitable. Also most children travel further to school so in the interests of safety, closure is the wisest option.
Times have changed....

[LovelyLadyLux]

Today it is raining here. Warmed up enough to rain. Going to head to the pool for a swim!

Snow always looks lovely as it falls and coats everything in a blanket of white but the next day the "loveliness" disappears fast as it dirts up!

[Ruby Slippers]

I wanna live in a country that NEVER has snow!

[LovelyLadyLux]

@H - that is a great idea for them to insert WIKI. Lots of times Alexa's answers were pretty short and they had to keep asking "tell me another fact" (as that is what Alexa told them to ask her to get more info). About 2 times Alexa said she was reading from Wiki.

@Grandad - I have NO idea where and why these two would even know about WWII. At school right now they're talking about the life cycle of the salmon and both boys are EXTREMELY well versed in that. They're into reading all sorts of encyclopedias and their mom said they were reading a book referencing WWII recently cause they had a few questions for her about it. IF they get a fact about anything they'll remember it and particularly the younger twin loves facts. He isn't so much into reading stories and even the teachers are starting to refer to him as a 'walking encyclopedia'!

Swimming pool was nice. The new schedule will be out Friday so will be seeing if there is anything of interest in it for me to do.

[LovelyLadyLux]

@H - the daughter was just arriving when I was typing my last post. I was showing her Alexa and adding "Wiki" to a question is DEFINITELY the "way to go!" Thanks muchly for that tip. Can't wait to tell the twins to add "wiki" to their questions because Alexa does give much fuller answers. She told them to ask "Tell me another fact" and they were saying that but that was getting a bit old to have to keep dragging out one tidbit and one tidbit.

[Horus]

excellent, did you tell your daughter about the 'Naughty Timer'? very usefull if they are into listening to Alexa

[LovelyLadyLux]

@H - Nah - not yet. Saving that one

[Mad Dilys]

Today I really, really must try not to get diverted and chase the maintenance companies, particularly about the boiler. I left it on last night and the sheer luxury of normal warmth when I got up in the night and opening the blinds this morning on such a cold day inspired me.

According to the weather forecast it's currently -5C here and feels like -14C. Only light snow, but the first morning since last summer when I looked out of the kitchen window there were no flowers on the campanula to greet me. I thought at the week end as there were only three flowers the cold had finally got to her, but next day I had 7 new ones! She's hidden by snow at the moment, but it will be interesting to see if she now starts flowering again after the thaw. Of course I will be doing my best to save seed and maybe take some cuttings of this extraordinary little plant that has given me so much pleasure.

[Ruby Slippers]

Hopefully, my son has CH and hot water again! The engineer left the boiler reading 3.9 bar and was there for 15 minutes, so my son had to get in from work and bleed all the radiators to get the pressure down! I do hope he gets this engineer sacked! My dearest DH has walked into town to get some shopping and it's a really bitter wind alongside the snow and ice we are suffering.

[Mad Dilys]

Poor old chap, I really feel for him. I hope they've salted the pavements.

Of course I sympathise with your son too,

[Grandad]

The usual Thursday morning shopping trip to Sainsburys. Most taxi drivers for the company we use are from around Europe. On the outbound trip David from Lyon was our driver. We know David quite well now as he is often our driver.
On the return trip we had a new face from Romania. A very friendly and courteous chap who went out of his way to help with the bags in the snowy conditions and put the bags right inside the front door, and as I have a walking stick, would not let me help.
Of course he is looking for a tip which he got, but we do find that generally speaking the Eastern European chaps give much better service that British lads.

We never leave the CH on all night but as the Doom and Gloom merchants were forecasting extreme overnight temperatures, I set it lower and left it switched on. Got up this morning to find the boiler had cut out and the warning light was blinking. Seems to be a pattern of boiler problems going on here.

I had two immediate thoughts. Fistly that the header in the loft had frozen. Unlikely because it is so well lagged but I climbed the loft ladder to find all was well.
Second thought was that the condensate pipe outside had frozen. Coat on, clear a path through the snow and bingo, the problem was obvious to see.


I cleared it and all is well BUT within 4 hours a new icicle was forming so as soon as I can get to B & Q I shall replace the pipe with an insulated one.

I won't be leaving it on tonight because the house does not get that cold overnight, there is nowhere else that I can lag or insulate.

[LovelyLadyLux]

What is the "CH?"

Today (so far) it is not raining and the sun is actually out. Heading to pottery this morning. Today is the last day they have coverage for (since the regular lady who runs it had emergent heart problems) but meetings with the other instructors are happening so hopefully today will learn IF there will be anymore Thursday morning drop in sessions. Definitely hope so as I quite enjoy mucking about and like all the other ladies who go there.

[Grandad]

Central Heating LLL. It seems that MD RS and now I have had CH probs. Not a good time

[Ruby Slippers]

Not me personally, Grandad. I don't have central heating. It was my son. Hopefully it is fixed, but it has been a nightmare!

[Horus]

Add me to that list, my CH boiler is less than 5 years old and of course it is the modern ‘condensing’ type, it had been so bitterly cold here for weeks and not feeling too great my CH has been on constant. There is open space opposite my home and the north wind cuts straight across the valley and this morning it was driving a blizzard against my kitchen window and the chill factor was Arctic like. Why is my house cooler than usual? “oh dear the boiler has locked out” a quick check showed nothing amiss, but on further investigation I found that the old ‘frozen condensate pipe’ syndrome typical of these new boilers had struck. This really annoyed me as when the boiler was installed I made a point of having this condensate pipe directed into the washing machine discharge pipe work inside the house, so there would only be a short length of large diameter plastic pipe going through the wall and into the drain, so the chances of this freezing up was very slim.

However frozen solid it was for about a foot or so and the condensate water had backed up behind it and tripped the boiler. I soon sorted that with a couple of kettles of hot water and because the icy wind was driving constantly at the outlet pipes I needed to take some action, so 10 yards of bubble wrap out of the garage stuffed all around the pipes, then some pieces of chipboard to hold it all in place, next covered everything up in a large plastic bag and then I shovelled snow all over everything like a small igloo, so the whole drain area and pipes are covered. Hopefully that will see me through the current icy conditions until I can come up with a better solution, at least the house is warm again.

Next was to de-ice the car, it was solid and as I had not even started it for nearly three weeks I was not surprised to hear a staccato clicking from the starter motor, that too was dead. So here I am with my 2.0 litre 4x4 SUV that should tackle anything and the bloody thing won’t start. The problem is that nowadays and especially in the Winter months it hardly get much of an outing so it was really no surprise. Had to pick up a prescription, plus I needed to call into the bank, not to mention some shopping as I had not done any for over two weeks, so it was my neighbour to the rescue and he, myself and his wife all went shopping together in his car. So today has been a complete washout and a pain in the arse, fortunately the car has since started OK and is on charge as we speak and the boiler is working fine, lets see what tomorrow brings.

So it has prompted me to buy another trickle charger to leave on the car as I don’t really do enough miles to keep such a big battery in a fully charged state, I already have one connected to my caravan battery which stays on all the time it is not in use and that has been great. But all this grief does beg the question of why all our superior and extremely useful items always seem to fail at the point we need them the most?

[Mad Dilys]

Central Heating LLL. It seems that MD RS and now I have had CH probs. Not a good time

Never is a good time Grandad, that's how it is. Strange though, in less than a year I've had to replace Microwave, washing machine, tumble dryer, vacuum cleaner, laptop and now it seems boiler.

Coming up pretty soon, electrical check which I'm sure will result in modifications, window replacements, underfloor insulation in living room, probably loft insulation, new loft door that actually fits, chimneys capped and pointed, sort crazy plumbing, take up landing carpet and check floorboards which are very wobbly (obviously no proper underlay or attention) and investigate a hole which seems to be appearing in the doorway to my bedroom for starters.

If I had about £20k I could improve this house a lot.

This is a typical Victorian end of terrace villa - high ceilings and good sized rooms, with extension to the rear. Great for a family but for single occupancy a heating nightmare.

I'm hoping all the above will be underway this year and the property can be let.

On the plus side it was nice for 3 Firemen to call this week and in about 10 minutes fit and test 3 alarms. Free of charge too!:up

[LovelyLadyLux]

Geez it seems the Beast has really been causing a lot of havoc for you all. Hopefully the Beast will peter itself out soon and you'll all get back to balmy temperatures.

@H re: your frozen pipe - do they sell - well here it is called heat tape. It is tape you wrap around your pipes that has an electric heating element in it. Keeps exposed pipes from freezing (like underneath trailers) and you really only have to plug it in when the temperatures go low.

I guess I have CH that is run off a heat pump + furnace that are gas but I also have infrared 'furnaces' that are plug in electric jobs. They're great for zone heating. They take a bit to heat up the area as they're not really heating the air but once they get everything heated up they keep things cozy. Personally I'd prefer a wood fireplace as I like the hot dry heat of wood but wood stove here have gone the way of the dinosaur.

Hopefully the temperatures will warm up for you all soon.

We've had rain and temperatures now up above freezing so most of the snow has melted and disappeared. My heather out front is nice and bright purply pink and adding a splash of colour. The crocus were up, mushed over sideways by the snow but are again growing UP straight and in another couple of days will be looking like normal.

[Mad Dilys]

Today I shall be searching for any odd tablets that I might have taken on holiday with me for instance and not put back in the box. My surgery gets irritable if you order less than three weeks after the last prescription.

When I order a repeat it won't be dispensed for two more days. Unfortunately week ends have to be factored in as the chemists attached to the surgery are closed at week ends and so usually there's about 4 day lapse (4 prescriptions two of which are variable doses it makes me crazy ) I couldn't get an answer from them yesterday when I tried to order a prescription and there's no traffic at all today. Might have to do without it seems.

Of course the Co-op shop next door is shut, I've seen a few disappointed pedestrians tuning away. The people who are out and about are all without exception walking in the middle of the road.

To be honest it's not the snow that's the problem, it's the ice. I feel very sorry for the rough sleepers in the city and all the people up in the Valleys as it's drifting very badly up there.

It's funny, I just glanced out of the window and saw some people just standing and looking at the closed shop from across the road, as if they could open it with will power.

[Horus]

LLL, there will be things available it is something I must look into, the real problem is that in the UK the weather tends to be fairly mild and temperate. The problem is that we are not equipped for any large deviation in weather, so if we get a prolonged hot spell we run out of water, not because we don’t get enough rain, but because we let most of it run into the sea because our reservoirs are not big enough to stand a long drought which may only come every 20 to 30 years or so. The same applies to heavy storms, we have built on so much of our natural flood plains that when we do get extreme wet weather and storms then our river systems cannot take the run-off water and we get severe flooding.

Similarly we do not usually get bad Winters anymore, unlike when I was a child, so we do not have the equipment on standby such as an army of gritters and snow ploughs to keep our roads open. In addition many newer drivers have never driven in bad conditions and so they block main and side roads because they cannot cope with the bad road conditions. Neither do we change our tyres for the Winter unlike most countries that have a regular fall of snow for weeks on end, so we are all driving about on tyres designed for dry and wet roads and not snow. To change over to Winter tyres for the occasional bad Winter would be prohibitive and I doubt if 1 in 1000 UK motorists have ever had to put snow chains on their vehicles in their lifetime. Basically our temperate climate means that we do not deal with extremes very well as they are a rarity and the cost of prevention is too high when compared to the frequency of any particular event from flooding, drought and severe Winter freezes.