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No User Serviceable Parts Inside

I’ve already had the first domestic disaster of the year. On New Year’s Day, my tumble dryer stopped working, with a soggy load of towels inside and another load in the washing machine. It looked to be electrically dead – no lights on the front panel at all. I tried changing the fuse in the plug, in a forlorn hope that might fix it, but it made no difference. It would happen in the middle of a long Bank Holiday weekend, with no possibility of getting it repaired or replaced as quickly as I should like.

I phoned the local Domestic Appliance Repair people on Tuesday and asked them to send someone round to look at it and try to fix it. The earliest they could make was Thursday afternoon, as there was a long queue of people whose appliances had broken over the holidays. A very pleasant chap came round and diagnosed that the main control PCB had failed. The machine is only a few years old, but of course the particular model is already obsolete. It may or may not be possible to get a replacement board, but it could take ages and I was warned it could cost nearly £200. That’s ridiculous! For only very slightly more than that, I could have a brand new tumble dryer delivered, fitted, and the old one taken away. 

I said I wanted a new tumble dryer asap, and what did they have in stock that they could deliver the next day? The chap phoned the store to check, and found that they were completely out – they had sold the last one in stock just minutes earlier. However, they were having a delivery Friday morning and did I want to reserve one of those? I checked that it wasn’t one of the brands that’s currently setting kitchens and houses on fire up and down the country, and it’s not. The price was reasonable, so I said yes, provided that it was delivered and fitted on Friday afternoon in time for me to spend the weekend catching up on the laundry.

They turned up as promised this afternoon to deliver the new tumble dryer, and told me that there was a massive run on them at the moment – mine was the sixth one that they had been called out to this week! The chap said it was almost as if the manufacturers had programmed them all to fail simultaneously! As they took the old one out from under the counter I noticed that it was rather dusty behind there – accumulated fluff from the tumble dryer no doubt. So I thought I’d take the offortunity to give it a quick once over with the vacuum cleaner, which was working fine on Sunday. It was dead as a dodo. It’s probably about ten years old, so I can’t complain too much, but it’s still very annoying and won’t be economical to repair. I’ll have to replace that too. 

They say that things happen in threes, so I’m waiting with baited breath to see which of my appliances fails next. It really annoys me that there’s such a throw-away culture these days and that it’s rarely easy or economical to repair broken household goods. It’s a right scam having to replace everything anew every few years……

06 01 2017 Gillian house
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Logistics Nightmare

When Christopher was having chemotherapy, his immune system was dangerously compromised one week in every three, and it was unsafe for him to go out too much in case he caught an infection. But he still wanted to contribute to the running of the household to the fullest extent he could, so we started making use of the Waitrose online delivery service. It worked really well – he placed an order via their website, one of the staff at the Malvern branch did the shopping for him (pushing a trolley round the store with a handheld device with the shopping list and bar-code reader), and one of the shelf-stackers doubled up as delivery van driver and brought the shopping round in a time-slot that we’d chosen. 

I’d assumed that was the standard model for online grocery deliveries. When I’ve subsequently had Tesco online orders, they appear to come from the larger Worcester branch, rather than the more local but much smaller Ledbury branch, but it’s still a pretty local service, and I suppose that Worcester can offer more choice. On Friday, however, I needed to stock up on basics and couldn’t face going into Malvern to shop in person in Waitrose – it’s a complete scrum in there over the Christmas holidays and the parking is a nightmare. Instead I placed an order online with Morrisons, who have a large supermarket at the far end of Malvern, about 8 miles away from me. I naturally assumed that my shopping would be coming from there. But no. The driver got lost, which isn’t a good sign (especially as the postcode directs most satnavs pretty much directly to my front door!) and had to phone to ask for directions. It turned out that he wasn’t a local at all. He lives in Tamworth, 60 miles from here, well to the north of Birmingham. I was delivery number 5 out of 19 he had to do on Friday evening, and the next one was 125 miles away!

I seem to remember reading that Morrisons were later than most of the other supermarkets to cotton on to the trend towards online shopping, and so bought their way in to the market by doing a deal with Ocado, who also have a business model of a few centralised warehouses with hub-and-spoke delivery. However, I’m really surprised that Morrisons can make that business model work. It must be a complete nightmare scheduling all the deliveries to fit within the time-slots the customer has requested, and there must be huge risks of getting snarled up in traffic on the motorways. Not to mention the obvious “green” downside of all those extra food-miles, with the last person’s shopping being driven presumably hundreds of miles in total around the countryside! Plus I don’t see how the £4 or so delivery charge can possibly cover even the driver’s time, let alone petrol and overheads. That’s their problem though, not mine, and from the point of view of a consumer it all works pretty well. All the things I wanted were there, there were no missing items or substitutions, the quality was acceptable and the price was lower than I would expect to pay at Waitrose. The driver was slightly later than the specified slot, but that was mostly because he got lost. I’d be happy to use the service again, but shall keep an interested eye out on the business pages in the newspapers to see whether Morrisons are actually making any money from it.

01 01 2017 Gillian food Comments (1) Permalink

Merry Mouse-Free Christmas

I received a Christmas card last week from Peter, Christopher’s stepfather. In it he wished me a happy and mouse-free Christmas. Well, you can guess what happened next. Almost immediately, the tell-tale scrabbling sounds started from my loft – this time directly above my chair in the living room. The mice were clearly planning a very merry Christmas of their own in the relative warmth of my loft.

Fortunately, I’m on very good terms with Martin, the friendly neighbourhood pest-controller. He was able to squeeze in a visit before he stopped for Christmas, and has replenished the bait in the attic. That should sort them out for a month or two. It really is an ongoing battle, but that’s hardly surprising given that I live out in the countryside. I’ve renewed my annual rolling contract, and will keep Martin’s number to hand in my phone for the next time I hear the unwelcome visitors…….

24 12 2016 Gillian house Comments (1) Permalink

The end of the Shower Saga?

I took yet another half day off work, and the plumber finally came back to put silicone sealant around the edge of the shower. Of course, I wasn’t able to use it immediately – the sealant takes about 24 hours to cure fully, so I had to wait before I could test out the new shower. Which is indeed very powerful and much better than the weedy electric one I’ve been using for the past several months. 

But the saga wasn’t quite over yet. The tap assembly is attached to the underlying mixer valves by a couple of grub screws, and the screw holes are filled in with small screw caps. But the plumber couldn’t find the screw caps. They were so small, and he’d spent so long on the job that they got mislaid. I think myself that he must have thrown them out when he tidied up. Never mind, he said, they were “mostly cosmetic” and he’d phone Triton (the shower manufacturer), get some spares sent to him, and forward those on to me. At that point, I was so relieved to have the shower installed and so keen to see the back of him, that I foolishly agreed to that plan and paid the balance.

Big mistake! Because of course the promised screw caps never turned up, nor did I get a phone call saying what was going on. So I ended up phoning Triton myself instead. Now there’s a company with appalling customer service. It was no wonder the plumber hadn’t been in touch, as Triton refused point blank to send me two tiny metallic-effect screw caps, total estimated value approximately 50p. And their parts are apparently deliberately non-standard sizes, so I couldn’t get something suitable from a hardware store.  Instead, they would only sell me an entire mixer tap assembly, including the screw caps, for the princely sum of £40, though that did include next-day courier delivery. When I said that was unreasonable, they were totally unbending and said I should take it up with the plumber. Since I am sick of the sight of him and fully intend to get a different and hopefully more competent guy in the future, I wasn’t keen on that. The only upside of spending £40 is that, if the same thing happens as last time, and the tap handle shears off due to metal fatigue, I do at least have a spare handy.

I now have a fully functioning shower, including the screw caps, a spare mixer tap assembly, and a strong desire for a new plumber for next time something goes wrong. If anyone in the Malvern area has a tame plumber they’d be happy to recommend, please email me or leave a comment!

18 12 2016 Gillian house
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The Maya at the British Museum

I’ve been on another of my Archaeological Study Days with Andante Travels. This time it was behind the scenes at the British Museum, learning about the Mayan civilisation of the Yucatan peninsular, straddling today’s Mexico, Belize and Guatamala. It’s a civilisation I’ve been interested in ever since Christopher and I honeymooned in Mexico over 20 years ago and visited a number of fascinating Mayan archeological sites. I remember that many of the ruins were deep in the jungle, with tall pyramids just peeking above the tree-tops, and clearly lots more to be discovered still covered with vegetation. Since then, there has been huge progress in deciphering the Mayan hieroglyphs, so much more is understood about the rulers and their preoccupations.

The day started in a meeting room in a hotel near Russell Square tube station. There was meant to be a total of 17 guests, but three were no-shows, probably due to the horrendous chaos caused by the Southern train strike that day. (I’d gone down the night before to stay with my parents, who fortunately are on a suburban rail line operated by another train company, so I wasn’t directly affected by the strike). Our first talk in the morning was from one of Andante’s guest lecturers, who has quite literally “written the book” on the Mayans. He was very knowledgeable, and gave us a galloping ride through the discovery and excavation of a number of Mayan sites by antiquarians in the 19th century, counterpointed with new information from recent excavations and new epigraphic analysis of the hieroglyphic texts. We then had a second lecture from a Research Fellow at the British Museum, a specialist in Central America, who covered one of the sites in more detail before telling us about a new project she is working on with Google to digitise many of the excavation records and photographs to provide wider access to some of the more obscure parts of the museum collections.

Lunch was a huge selection of mezes at a Greek restaurant literally just around the corner from the British Museum. It was absolutely delicious – I do love mezes, and the food reminded me of several good meals that I’ve had on holiday in Greece, particularly in Thessaloniki a few Christmases ago. 

After lunch we went “behind the scenes” at the British Museum, to the Anthropology Library somewhere in the basement. A couple of large tables had been reserved for us, and the lecturer had skipped half of lunch in order to pull together a selection of interesting books, maps, and artefacts from the Library’s collection. There were original (and very rare) volumes of photographs and drawings from the early explorers we had learned about in the morning, which we were invited to browse through, as well as a selection of ceramics, obsidian and granite tools, and textiles. Even better, one of the other staff members brought out a box of exquisite carved jade objects from the Mayan civilisation, which we were encouraged to handle, though he did watch us like a hawk to make sure we put the artefacts back! We were also given a sneak preview of the 3D immersive app that Google is funding, allowing us to “virtually teleport” to one of the archeological sites.

We then were taken on a guided tour of the Mayan collection in the British Museum. There’s only a couple of rooms (well, one main room and a staircase really) but it’s very good stuff. Some of it is original artefacts, donated to the BM by the early explorers, and some is plaster casts, made by those same explorers over 100 years ago, of stone carvings the originals of which are now sadly weathered away. 

All in all, it was a very interesting day, and I learned a lot. 

15 12 2016 Gillian Day out Comments Off on The Maya at the British Museum Permalink

A Row with the National Trust

I was on the phone to the National Trust this afternoon, and the conversation incensed me so much that I hung up on them and fired off an email of complaint:

I phoned up this afternoon to attempt to buy a gift membership for my elderly parents. First, you wanted my date of birth. That is absolutely unacceptable; you have no need of that information. I am not a supporter, and now never will be. For your purposes I am nothing but a supplier of a valid credit card and billing address. My DoB is deeply personal, and if it gets into the wrong hands would leave me vulnerable to identity theft. I NEVER hand that out to people who do not have a valid official reason. Which you don’t. 

But your appallingly lax approach to personal security continued. You then wanted my parents’ dates of birth. If anything, that is worse! Cyber security experts are forever warning the elderly to be careful of plausible fraudsters, and NEVER to hand out personal details over the phone. And yet here you are refusing to sell a membership without deeply personal and intrusive data. 

At that point I put the phone down. I will now NOT be giving my parents NT membership for Christmas. I rather think that they will enjoy membership of the V&A, who are perfectly happy to sell me a membership without requiring me to compromise my family’s identity and online security. 

I work in the IT sector, and we are given regular refreshers about personal data. It sounds like your organisation could do with some very basic training for absolute beginners. It is a fundamental principle NEVER to hand out unnecessary information which could be used to compromise one’s personal details. I am absolutely appalled at your organisation for being so shockingly lax in its approach to personal data.

I should like to receive a full and reasoned argument as to why you believe that you require this data and how you secure it. Is the database encrypted? Who has access to it and how do you control that? Why on earth do you think you want it in the first place? For your information, I shall be warning my colleagues about your fundamentally flawed approach to personal information. It would make a good case study in how NOT to proceed.

I trust you will take this complaint seriously, and look forward to hearing from you in the very near future.

I’m not holding my breath, but I felt a lot better having got that off my chest. 

07 12 2016 Gillian invective Comments (3) Permalink

Who Killed Santa Claus?

It’s been a while since I’ve been to the theatre, and I certainly don’t intend to go there over the Christmas season, when all that’ll be on is The Panto. Not my cup of tea at all. The actors for that are already in town, and the principals (some minor stars from children’s TV) turned on the Christmas Lights last weekend – I didn’t go to that either. But before the inevitable Panto Season, the theatre’s got on a festive whodunnit, Who Killed Santa Claus? I thought it would be worth a look, so this morning I booked myself a standby ticket to this afternoon’s matinée.

It was written by Terence Feely, who wrote screenplays for classic TV shows such as The Avengers, The Prisoner, and The Gentle Touch. So, unsurprisingly, it was set in the world of television in the early 1970s. Barbara Love is a TV presenter of a very successful children’s show. As usual, she hosts a party on Christmas Eve, and invites her colleagues from her show – the producer, director, make-up artist, writer, secretary. But immediately before the party she receives coffin as a present, and death threats on her answerphone. It soon becomes clear that all of her colleagues have a good reason to want her dead.

It’s not so much a whodunnit, more a who-is-going-to-do-it, as you wait for the murder to happen and try to second-guess the multiple plot twists. I reckon I spotted one genuine hole in the plot, and guessed two of the major twists well before the denouement, but then I’ve read a lot of murder mysteries and this one was pretty formulaic. It was fun to watch though, and the ghastly ’70’s fashions were very entertaining in a cringe-making way. I thought it was well worth a tenner for a standby seat.

03 12 2016 Gillian Day out
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Edging closer to a functional shower…..

The saga of replacing the shower still isn’t over, though I hope I can see the end in sight at last. The plumber has been back to grout the tiles, and has actually done a pretty reasonable job. The new tiles don’t match the original ones, as those are now obsolete. Fortunately, however, I had the main bathroom retiled last year in a very similar colour-scheme, and the left-over tiles from that don’t look too odd a match. I still need to have silicone sealant applied round the edges of the tiles. That’s allegedly only a half-hour job, but needs to wait until the grout is dry, so requires a further visit. I’ve booked that for the end of this week, and then I hope I’ll have a fully usable shower once again.

However, as so often happens with this house, having one job done just highlights another problem that I have to get fixed. In this case, the time before last that the plumber was here, he noticed that my main stopcock was leaking. Not badly, but enough to warrant replacing it. That of course means turning the water off at the water meter outside the property, as you can’t replace the tap otherwise. When he was last here doing the grouting, he had planned to replace it, but it turned out that he’d brought the wrong type of stopcock with him. He’d brought one for a modern house with plastic pipes, not realising that this place is old enough to have copper water pipes. So when he comes back to do the sealant, it won’t be such a quick job as he’d hoped, as he will need to have another go at replacing the tap while he’s here. 

I will be so glad to get my shower back! It’s been months……

20 11 2016 Gillian house Comments Off on Edging closer to a functional shower….. Permalink

More emails from Beyond

It’s that time of year again when I get a flurry of emails from Christopher, or rather from a Google Calendar that he set up before he was ill. They are a series of reminders about the house and car – “Empty septic tank”, “Service central heating”, “Get quote for house insurance renewal” and the like. It’s a bit of a double edged sword – on the one hand, it’s somewhat disturbing/upsetting to get emails from him, but on the other hand, they are undeniably useful reminders to get things done.

The most recent one was “Car MOT and service due”, so I dutifully phoned the garage to get it booked in for yesterday. I’ve got tons of annual leave left, which needs to be used up by Christmas, so my plan was to take the day off work, drop the car at the garage which is right next to the railway station, then catch the train to Worcester for the day for a bit of a change of scenery. There is a rather nice bistro in Friar Street which does a very pleasant two-course fixed-price menu, and I decided I’d treat myself to a leisurely meal. I was in the middle of my lunch (grilled pork chop, creamy mash, roasted baby vegetables, crispy sage and a rich gravy, followed by a lemon and ginger bavarois with strawberry coulis. Two tasty courses, a small glass of wine and a coffee all for under £20) when the garage rang. The car had comprehensively failed its MOT with corrosion on all of the brake pipes. Mike would try to have it ready for 5pm, but it would need a fair amount of work to fix and there was no guarantee it would be ready.

To say I wasn’t happy is something of an understatement, but I’ve got to have a safe, legal car and dodgy brakes are a serious problem given that I live on top of a very steep hill! So I gave the go-ahead for the work to be done, and headed off to the city library for the afternoon before catching the train back to Malvern. The library is new since my time. When I was at school in Worcester, it was in an old civic building that also housed a rather fusty museum. Since then, it has moved into a brand new building, trendily called “The Hive” which it shares with the library of Worcester University. It’s a hideous, gold-coloured monstrosity of a building, in what used to be a rather dodgy part of the city, squeezed between the bus station and the railway line. I’d never been in it before, but it’s impossible to miss. Actually, it was significantly pleasanter inside than out, mostly because once you’re inside  it you can’t see how hideous it is. I whiled away most of the rest of afternoon there, before catching the train back to Malvern to see if my car was ready.

When I got to the garage there was no sign of it. Mike said he’d spent the afternoon fixing the brakes, and that he’d taken it back to the MOT place to be re-tested. He would then do the full service on it the next day, assuming that it passed this time. In the meantime, I needed to get home, so he kindly lent me a courtesy car – a very under-powered W-reg little Vauxhall with extremely light steering and a very approximate gear-box. I really didn’t enjoy driving it at all, but I suppose it’s good to try other cars every now and then, if only to remind myself how much I like my Mini! I kept the courtesy car overnight, so I could get into work this morning, but was hugely relieved at lunchtime to find out that my car was ready and waiting for me, even if a rather fat repair bill was accompanying it. Hopefully, that’s going to keep it on the road until the same time next year…..

15 11 2016 Gillian car Comments (1) Permalink

Christopher’s Tree 2016

Christopher's Tree August 2016

Christopher’s Tree August 2016

When I met up with Christopher’s stepfather, Peter, for lunch a few months ago, he promised to send me some up to date pictures of Christopher’s Tree. It’s getting to be an adolescent now, not a sapling any more, and is doing well on a patch of ground owned by the Woodland Trust near to where Peter lives in Kent.

Unfortunately, I’ve been having some problems with my email, and the photos kept bouncing due to an overfull mailbox. I’ve never really understood how Christopher set up the email server, and I’m sure it’s well overdue being updated given that it’s been over six years since it’s had a competent sysadmin. However, I’ve muddled through and finally managed to clear enough space to get a copy of the photos. Sometimes I really wish I’d asked Christopher a few technical questions about the domestic IT set up, while I still had a chance. However, we had other things on our mind at the time…..

10 11 2016 Gillian Photo Comments (1) Permalink