Tony Sutton’s Blog!

Last night, we had work’s xmas dinner (just us ITS dept) and it went pretty good. Good food, lots of drinkings (not me as I was driving) and good laughs.

And I have another dinner do tonight and then pub crawl afterward with the deafies group.

Then another xmas dinner next Tuesday at work with other support staff. Im going to be full up! ;P

This morning, we had fog and HARD frost! And very cold… So cold my black car turned into white.

All over.

That’s how cold the frost was.

Took a while to scrape the ice off the windscreen and the ice scraper broke! So had to use hot cloth to thaw away the ice.

Need to buy a new ice scraper someday this week… And don’t tell me to buy anti freeze spray… It eats away the paintwork so im not touching it anymore.

Got to work a bit late because of this. Need to find something to cover up the windscreen.

Renewal paperwork arrived today… it’s an price increase of almost £35 from the cost of last year. :/

However for the past two weeks I have been getting some quotes and found one which is a saving of £107 compared with the new price from my current insurance.

So looks like I will be switching insurance once again as soon as they answered my questions and am happy with the answers.

The joy of car ownerships.

Well, that didn’t take a while… the brand new, almost 2 weeks old boiler is making unusual noise and lots of vibration & banging.

Called Heatrite this morning and they said they think it’s faulty. Have fired off an e-mail to them, with more details and will wait to hear back from them to see what the next action is. Maybe fix it or replace it.

Which means we need to arrange some time off from work yet again. Or find someone who is willing to stay in for us… maybe my mum or someone else.

Good thing its under warranty!

In other news… has anyone used System Center Operations Manager 2007? Is it worth it? I’ve installed the trial version at work this afternoon and from what I can see, it’s a very complex software. I guess I need to do some RTFM.

I’m hating the cold weather…

I hate Xmas shopping. Too many people in shops & streets. Think I still need 3 or 4 more pressie to go before I’m all done.

Xmas tree is still not up yet - no time! Maybe next week or so…

Today, we are going to cook some cake, and the roast dinner and also watch Star Wars at 4:10pm today. Then Top Gear at 9pm (remember, everyone - not 8pm!)

And the weather sucks.

… we’re home!

Left Bristol at 2:45pm, got home at 8:40pm  - rush hour traffic WAS bad! And heavy rain.

We’re glad to be home now… but not looking forward to work tomorrow.

Night time view.

In bristol, off frogmore street.

Finally arrived to Bristol and managed to get through the crazy road without any problems.

Having a break in birmingham - one mour hour to Bristol. Heavy rain here. And wind too.

Hope the weather will be nice for tomorrow.

We’re off to Bristol tomorrow for the funeral of my mum’s aunt on Thursday. It’s going to be a looooong drive! Hopefully no issue with traffic & roadworks…

Weather for tomorrow is cloudy so may rain. I don’t like driving in the rain because too many crazy drivers doing stupidMPH in rain where the visibility is low.

And someone said there is a heavy roadwork in the middle of Bristol due to a new bus lane system, and our hotel is in the middle of Bristol, so may try to get there before the rush hour starts. Or head straight to Portishead where the family are and wait until after the rush hour. Will wait & see…

Going to pack, relax in front of TV and try to sleep early.

Panasonic DMC-FX55 Black is looking sweeeet… need to look around for a good price…

Anyone got one of those?

Even that the heating install was done a few days ago, we haven’t had the chance to do a clean up around the house.

And that’s out plan for today - dusting, hoovering, moving stuff around, etc.

Before we start, we need a boost - Breakfast!

Last night, I went to the Deaf Club for the Xmas Bingo and Xmas Raffle. It was well busy with loads of people and also loads of prizes! I won one which was a bottle of fruit drink. But others got lucky, winning as much as 5 prizes! Good for them.

Next Sat is the Xmas Party with Cocktail drinks - should be a goodnight!

Anyway… brekkie!

Can’t believe it’s already December!

Right I’m going to make this a quick post about the heating install - it’s all done FINALLY (well almost). Let me tell you a short story.

July 07 - Visit by the guys for survey

Aug 07 - Grant approved

Nov 20th - Receive a phone call, saying heating work will start on 22nd Nov and should last Thurs, Fri and Monday.

Nov 22nd (Thurs) - Guys turned up and started doing the work.

Nov 23rd (Fri) - Still at it, but there was a talk of not being able to finish it on time. At the end of the working day, they said they may need more time.

Nov 26th (Mon) - Work started. Confirmed they will need Tuesday. Told my boss at work about the delay and will need time off from work.

Nov 27th (Tues) - They said they still need more time. Yet again, told my boss again. Boss reminded me I’m out of holiday leave and will need to build up flex time. Bugger.

Nov 28th (Wed) - is it done? Noooo. They need more time! Told boss again.

Nov 29th (Thurs) - They warned they may need Friday too. But they managed to finish it on this day - hurrah! They packed up and left. 10 minutes later. One guy came back sand said he forgot to put the heat plate behind the boiler so the boiler will need to be taken apart. ARGHHHHH. They will contact us with a date of yet another visit…

What meant to be a 3 days of work turned out to be 6 days! And because of it we have to go to work today as we need to build up our flex time owed! Hum ho…

The delay was down to lack of survey which was done back in July 07 - the pipes that was going through under the floor boards - it contains some harden concrete and steel so it took them ages to drill through it for the pipes to go through as there was no other way round.

Still, I think this stress was worth it as we now have central heating system instead of the old, crappy Air Heating (or known as Forced Air) which was half working.

Our next step is to brick up the vents and plaster it over. And decide what to do with the big, empty space in the kitchen, where the old boiler used to sit. Might think about knocking down the wall to fit our fridge/freezer in there or something… need to think up of a plan.

Anyway, photos can be found here if you’re interested in seeing what they did (including some dodgy work)

Time to go to work…

In summary:

* Gas boiler in the kitchen - disconnected

* Airing cupboard upstairs - water tank emptied and ripped out

* Loft - water tank emptied and ripped out

* Both above - water pipes ripped out

* Upstairs carpet removed and floorboards removed to install new pipes (not done). This included moving or stuff out of one room to another room.

* New radiator installed in my study room and our bedroom.

That was for day one. Tomorrow, they will fit the radiators in the 3rd bedroom, 2 x in the living rooms and also the porch before making a start with other jobs.

Then the weekend of no jobs as they don’t work over weekend. They start on Monday with a possible of extending it into Tuesday as they said there are a lot of work to do. But with the amount of work they did today, I think they still can finish on Monday…otherwise I’ll have to ask my boss for another day off from work.

Things left to do:

* New piping around the house including under the floorboard

* New 22mm Gas pipe to be fitted from the gas mains to the new gas boiler

* Removal of the old gas boiler

* Other bits that I don’t know. Hopefully will find out tomorrow…

And we were freezing our arses off all day today with the door open as they had to route a water hose pipe to the front door get the water off. So the cold wind got into the house - BRRRRR. They also said there will be no hot water until Monday. Good thing we have electricity shower with its own heater.

They are going to turn up one hour earlier tomorrow, so we need to wake up a bit early. Ughhhhh.