Tony came round again this morning, for the fourth time in three weeks, and brought with him another spare part for my pressurised hot water system. He says that should now have fixed the original leak – the one into the overflow pipe outside the kitchen. I went outside to check, and it does seem […]
Three years ago (Is that all? It seems longer) Christopher and I went on a study tour to Split in Croatia with the Kent Archaeological Field School, and had a really good time exploring the stunning Roman remains there. On the last night of the holiday, as is traditional on such trips, the whole group […]
It feels like I ought to award the IcyJumbo Prize for Appalling Customer Service at least monthly, as there is such a high standard of competition! Today I’ve fallen out with AXA about my home insurance renewal. AXA, or at least someone purporting to be AXA, sent an unsolicited email over the weekend to one […]
Malvern is well out in the sticks. We do have a single-screen cinema, but it is at best several weeks behind London and the big cities when it comes to showing recent film releases – if we get them at all. However, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy finally arrived here on Friday for a two-week run. […]
I arranged to work from home this morning so that Tony, the boiler service man, could come back and fit a new valve to my hot water tank, to stop the drip which he discovered on Tuesday. However, I got a phone call at 8:30 this morning to say that, unfortunately, he had ordered the […]
One of the rather spooky Google Calendar Reminders I’ve received recently has been to tell me to get the boiler serviced. It’s oil-fired, and it’s good practice to get it serviced every year before the weather turns and I start to need my central heating. So I arranged to work from home this afternoon, and […]
Chris and I went on several murder mystery weekends over the years, and thoroughly enjoyed them. My college friends, Tom and Katie, had wanted to go on one with us for years, but never managed to get around to it. We did once get so far as all booking to go on one – I […]
When Chris was first made redundant, almost exactly two years ago, he was keen to take on the role of “house husband” and do more of the running of the house. But he really wasn’t a details person and was concerned that he’d forget something. So he decided to use technology to help, and set […]
I realised that, although I’ve mentioned before that my garden has multiple terraces, I’ve only actually posted pictures of the bottom two. So to remedy that, here is a picture of the top two terraces. On the right is the new fence running along the top of the second terrace. On the left are steps […]
My original plan was to have a quiet few days this weekend. It’s been a pretty tough week at work, including a 7.5 hour meeting at our Hampshire headquarters on Wednesday. That turned out to be harder work than I expected when my colleague texted me whilst I was on the way there to say […]
