There's a hole in my... ...floor!

29/10/2008 Thursday

Another building job started today - the insurance contractors arrived to start fixing the broken drains. There are two breaks to fix. One is in the flat sewer, and the break is actually under the house, while the other is at the back corner of the house, near where the house sewer joins the main sewer under the back alley. The outside breakage, we know the cause - every week the rubbish truck goes down the back alley to collect the rubbish, and most weeks, the drive over the little concrete paving strip that runs around the house to protect the drain. Over time, the weight of the truck has broken the concrete, and then the pipe below. The inside break we are not sure about - we'll need to see what it looks like when they get down there. It will probably take them a while, as it's under a concrete floor.

Almost done...

These pics are about 2 weeks old, and show you how close the painting is to done. All we need now is one more dry day to finish the job.
(The blue self-propelled advert is what the insurance gave us while our car was in the shop)

Thinking Politics

Well, since I've been too short of breath to move much, I've been doing a bit more websurfing than usual, and I ran into a fascinating little essay on politics I'd like to share. You can find it here.

*cough cough wheeeeeeeze....*

Well, it's now officially winter here. My first cold of the season arrived on friday, but decongestants and paracetalmol seemed to be keeping it at bay, then on Saterday it struck back. Three boxes of kleenex, loaded to the eyeballs with meds, and no energy. Then on Sunday night it got serious, and dragged my asthma into play. End result, I was up all night wheezing, and haven't been in to work yet this week.

I spent all of Monday sitting still as possible. Hitting the inhaler every 5-10 mins while waiting to go to the doctor. The doc told me that the cold was well on the way to going, and no signs of chest or sinus infection, just my asthma was now in overdrive. I was to keep on the ventolin (symptom relief) as much as I needed, and up my steroid dose from 2x2 to 3x3 or more.

Now, on Wednesday night, after 2.5 days living on the inhalers, I'm feeling somewhat better. I can walk between rooms without getting out of breathe, and even feel able to sleep tonight. So, all being well, back to work tomorrow, but keep the steroid dose high for the week.

The Car is back

Well, we got the car back yesterday, and you'd never know it was damaged in the first place. When I lifted the bonnet (hood, for ms US readers) to have a look at what they'd done, I was a bit confused at first, as I couldn't find the front cross-member, which had been dented. On closer inspection, I found that instead of running straight across the front as I had thought, it was curved outwards and ran inside the front bumper. Which means that the damage was worse than I had thought - instead of putting a small buckle into a straight member, Chrissy had actually managed to bend the entire member back against it's original curvature and displace it 6 to 8"

Ah well. Nobody was hurt and we have the car back now. Here's to a long time before the next repair.

Car update

OK, the garage has sent the repair estimate (~£2100+) to the insurance, and we are waiting for the insurance to give the go-ahead. For those who want details, this is the damage as I know it:

Front bumper - hole punched through it
Front cross-member - dented & buckled
Radiator - bent & punctured
A/C radiator - bent, maybe punctured
Assorted supporting brackets etc damaged

Mmmmm.......Tasty.......

Chrissy and Bowch made some gorgeous flapjack yesterday. They used treacle instead of golden syrup, which is a nice change.

I think I'll go and have a piece for breakfast.....

More building work

Now that everything has dried out, the insurance has sent round a builder to get the kitchen wall sorted out. The old plaster is now off, the kitchen is full of dust, and he's due back today to make a start on putting the new plaster up.

More painting.

Well. the paint shop got their mixing machine fixed, so yesterday Chrissy went up there and picked up the rest of the paint we need to get the outside house finished. If the weather holds, it should eb done in the nest few days.

Another hole....

But this time it's in the car.....

Chrissy had a "fender-bender" yesterday. She and the kids are fine, as it was a low speed bump. They were heading out to Graeme's on the back road. It's an unclassified road that's very narrow in places, and today there was a lot of muck on the road that had fallen off a tractor. A car coming the other way came over the hill in the middle of the road, and the car in front of Chrissy braked sharply. When Chrissy braked, she slid on the muck and went into the back of the car in front.

Nobody was hurt, but their tow-hitch punched a hole in our bumper and damaged the radiator, so our car is now off to the garage for a few days.