2010 – Snow Joke

Okay… boiler is dying. Downstairs radiators have given up the ghost.

Some dope cracked my Audi headlamp by wheel spinning in gritted snow.

I’ve been off work for the past week with a bad case of flu, topped off with a chest infection – I’ve been boiling, freezing, shaking, sweating, creaking… blah blah…. fed up of the whole thing, and now finding it very hard to breathe, A bit like having a weight on my chest and trying to breathe through a folded up towel… probably (I’ve not tried).

Then stroking our big black cat I find a lump between his shoulder blades… so a trip to the vet is due….

2010 is being a git.

Anyway, it wasn’t a totally bad start – We had snow, and Alex loved it.

Before I became ill I had a good week of snow fun with Alex. It was tainted by idiot chav types knocking the snowman’s head off – but I fixed it with a metal pole in the end. I had to use the pole because the snow had turned to ice crystals and wasn’t sticking together!

Eventually the chav idiots twisted the head around – but a bit more snow and warmer weather meant he could be rebuilt again…

Eventually the weather turned even warmer… and the snowman took his last gasp….

So… for a bit of fun, rather than focusing on the current bad hand 2010 has dealt us, here are some pictures of the snowman… as he morphed through attacks by chavs and weather…

BOB

Was beheaded.

BILL

Beheaded… then re-headed with a pole… then head twisted around

Mr. Iced T

Too tough for the Chavs…

Things got too warm though….

Don’t Bloody start on me 2010

Remember THIS? which came from THIS….

Yup…. good…

Guess what has just died…. two day before servicing….

Go on.

Guess….

We go Day-Glo…

Alex has snot blocks…..

The end of 2008 (September onwards) was a downward spiral of, well, crap for us.  The New Year came in and nothing changed – after all, it’s just a date and nothing magic, so what do people expect?

Chris is getting over the tail end of sinusitis and Alex is deep in a really bed chesty cough that has him unable to eat properly, and keeps him coughing so much he up-chucks. Add to this his totally blocked nose and constant river of thick luminescent snot slime and you realise he isn’t a happy boy – a bit scared at times as he doesn’t know what’s going on. Poor lad has trouble eating and drinking as he can’t breath as he fills his mouth… so he starts to panic and cough… and then it’s just a mess.

Now I’m going down with it – I have lasted over a week before succumbing to either Chris’s or Alex’s illness, but it’s here now – not full blown, but still not great.

What with finances, boiler breakdowns, illness and other family news, you can see why we are looking forward to 2010!! It’ll put space between us and 2008 for starters…

Now I know some people say “life is what you make it” – and to a point I agree, but anyone can be hit by a car, regardless of how positive their outlook on life.

No, life isn’t what you make it – life is what it is, but a positive atitude will get you through it better than a bad one.

The more positive you are, the longer through a really bad period you can make it without going mad!!! We are surfing close to that edge at the moment, but we have the good fortune of being a family with a young child.

A single person living on their own just doesn’t have the same drive to survive as a family member – especially the head of a family.  I’ve been there and to me there is no argument here, and I don’t care what anyone says – If you are a childless single person, it is very likely you have no idea of the pressures to not go under.

I know you still have bills and issues, but then add the children to the mix and you have to protect them as well – so it isn’t just your house you could lose – it is their home. It isn’t just your face you have to feed – you have them as well.

This focus does help keep the fighting spirit going though. We aren’t alone in our problems – and we are much better off than countless others in the world, but it is the worse we have seen and as such it is quite a load on us. We will just stick at it and get ourselves out of the other end.

There are no other options but to keep forging onwards.

Relax. BOHICA (look it up).

Parting with over £400 has left me with heating…. but I have had to turn it off because the “fixed”  boiler is making a hell of a racket.

Whilst looking to see where the noise could be coming from I ventured into the loft…. only to find the main water tank has been leaking from the stop cock. This was a repair a plumber carried out over a year ago – and the drip looks like it has probably been going on for that amount of time (I don’t go in the loft that often). The wood beams under the tank are saturated and the board it sits on is swollen.

I tightened up the nut, but it is still seeping. It has a vase under it to catch the drips for the mean time. I shall have to call the plumber tomorrow – and the boiler people again….

Roll on 2010.

BOHICA – thanks to POGO57

I told you the all seeing supreme being was malevolent…

The coldest temperature in England early today was -10C recorded at Farnborough in Hampshire, while several other towns recorded -7C.

The big chill today tightened its grip on London and the South-East with temperatures hitting as low as -10C making it colder than parts of Greenland and the Antarctic.

Yup… that’s what the news was this morning… You may have guessed I live in Farnborough, so I am sorry, but I think this might be all my fault….

You see, not satisfied with taking away my boiler and central heating, someone decided it would be a laugh to turn down the outdoor heating to -10 degrees C.

What am I talking about, you may ask… well look here, here and here at my previous blog entries…and then laugh along with me… Har. Har. Har.

That’s not rain from that cloud you know…

The Almighty supreme being says: "You have made me laugh so much I am now WETTING myself in hysterics!!!

I am going to snap.. I swear…

So… the boiler problem was a simple fix to get it going, but the previous owner of the house had screwed a few things up with the ventilation, and as such I need a big hole drilled in the side of my house and a vent fitted. I also need to put a vent into the bottom of the boiler cupboard. On top of that, the boiler needs a clean out due to the lack of ventilation causing it to coke up…. a potential cause for carbon monoxide poisoning….

…..sooooo… the boiler guy wasn’t allowed to re-commission my boiler until these ventilation issues are fixed… so that means the cost of today’s visit, plus tomorrows brick work and service/clean…. which looks to be around £500 odd quid.

I give up. You win….. Let’s start a new game now please.

It’s fff fu fffu ffuuffuf blummin cold now….

Still no boiler – no central heating…no hot water.

I’ve called out the registered people as I don’t want to go any further and take the front end of the boiler off and end up blowing the house up. Anything other than just trying to get the thing lit would be illegal anyway – and I can do with out that added bad luck.

It’s not going to be cheap getting it done the same day, but Alex has a really bad cough, as does Chris (both have been sick through so much coughing…)… and I’m starting to get it too….

See… I told you I shouldn’t have typed that last blog entry out loud…..

The guy upstairs is having a laugh….

What’s white and sits in our kitchen and keeps the house warm?

If you said “Your boiler” you’d be wrong today….

Bugger it.

Yes, something you don’t want to go wrong at the best of times has gone wrong… right when we are financially razor edged….and the temperature outdoors is sub zero.

Now this can only prove the existence of a higher being, as explaining this as simple coincidence really doesn’t cut the grade….

…it also suggests that the higher being has a malevolent sense of humour….

I would pray for help, but I really don’t want to draw any more attention to myself whilst that higher being is in this frame of mind…

Luckily though, my diagnosis is a faulty thermocouple – and that is a cheap and easy fix. Gas boilers are very simple things – but so is a gun or a knife – so no matter how simple it is, you need to remember that one wrong move could kill you – and the family. As such, I will buy a thermocouple in and get my registered friend to check it over.

Now I have typed that out loud I can almost guarantee that I will need a complete new boiler and central heating system……