My Journal - A Chronicle of Randomness

Here begins yet another sad plumbing related story.

Work was closed on Friday as it was our annual Christmas privilege day.  I was woken up at around 10.30am (I was tired!) by someone ringing the doorbell.  Obviously I wasn't dressed so I didn't answer.  The bell rang again that afternoon when I'd just got out of the shower.  By the time I'd put enough clothes on to be decent whoever it was had gone away.  A bit later on I went out and noticed a note stuck to my neighbour's front door.  The note was urging the occupant to contact the person in the flat below as water was pouring into into his bathroom seemingly from her flat.  I was slightly worried but reasoned that it was unlikely to be anything to do with me as all my pipes are on the other side of the flat and if they were leaking the water would most likely be ending up in the flat directly below mine.

I'm a born worrier so I there was still a niggling feeling of dread at the back of my mind.  On Christmas Eve I went to Kingston to pick up some last bits of shopping, then went to my parents' house to collect some gifts that had been delivered there.  When I got home the guy from downstairs rang the doorbell and asked whether I knew how to contact the girl next door.  I didn't and told him I thought she was away as I hadn't heard her moving around for a while.  After he'd gone I decided to investigate my pipework and found that water was dripping from the pipe leading in to the toilet cistern.  I knew that area of the bathroom was a bit damp but had put it down to condensation from cold water coming in to warm bathroom.  I put a towel round the pipe and thought I'd sort it out after Christmas.  Unfortunately, I'd badly underestimated the amount of water dripping out.  Within a  couple of hours the towel was soaked.  It was quite late by this stage so I wrapped another, larger towel around the pipe, put another towel on the bathroom floor and went to bed. 

When I woke up on Christmas morning, both towels were soaked and half the bathroom floor was flooded.  At this stage I did what any slightly useless lone female with a water leak on Christmas morning would do... I phoned my Dad.  By 11am he'd turned off the water going in to the cistern and declared that a new washer was needed.  Thank goodness my Dad is so good at fixing stuff.  I dread to think how expensive and stressful it would have been trying to find an emergency plumber on Christmas Day.

This morning, my parents came to collect me at 10.30am and we went on an exciting trip to Homebase to buy a new part.  The shop was practically empty.  I think everyone else shopping there was trying to sort out some kind of household emergency.  A lot of people seemed to be buying new kettles... Anyway, we got the new part and Dad had fitted it by lunchtime. 

Hopefully, the crisis is over.  The girl next door doesn't seem to be back yet and the guy from downstairs hasn't been up again.  If it was my leak that damaged his flat we'll have to sort it out through the insurance.  All in all a bit of Christmas drama I could have done without but which hopefully didn't have too much of any impact on anyone other than me and my family.

Christmas itself went OK.  It was the same as usual really.  My sister and brother in law spent Christmas Day with us and travelled to Shropshire this morning to spend Boxing Day with his family.  I spent today with my parents and failed to win any board, card or work games.

I wasn't given many gifts as my main present was subscription for Time Out magazine which is great, but not the kind of thing you can wrap up and put under the tree.  I got El Camino by The Black Keys (I'm really excited about seeing them at Alexandra Palace in February), the first volume of The Carrie Diaries (which I will be reading in secret in the flat), some silicone baking tins, the new Hummingbird Bakery cake book, a silver scarf and lots of chocolate and socks and things.

I'm off work for the rest of this week and will be trying to find some new furniture in the sale as I've outgrown some of the pieces I got when I first moved in.  Then on Saturday I'll be seeing in the new year at a wedding in Central London.  I'm so excited :)

I've just received an email from my broadband provider informing me that I've almost hit my maximum useage for this month.  They'll charge me £1.95 per GB if I go over.  Noooooo!  Not just before a bank holiday.  What am I going to do with myself without YouTube and the like to waste my time on? 

In other news I took the day off work on Wednesday and went up to London with mum.  We went to the Bank of England Museum, had a look at the memorial to everyday heroes in Postman's Park and then went to the Clockmaker's Museum in the Guildhall.  With the exception of the price of an extension to my travelcard so I could enter zones 1-3 it was a free day of entertainment.

The Bank of England museum was quite interesting.  We read about the architecture of the bank and I was suprised to read that it was largely rebuilt in the 1930s.  The enormous screen walls around the outside are all that is left of the old bank.  The old buildings were demolished within the screen walls and much taller, more modern buildings were built inside.  To provide visitors with an idea of what the old building was like they have recreated a one of the old rooms in the museum.  I was a bit disappointed that it was all quite new.  I thought it would be just like the bank in 'Making Money'.  Anyway, there were some quite interesting displays showing examples of all the different designs of banknote since banknotes began, full sets of all the coins minted since the reign of William and Mary and a few bits about the career of Kenneth Grahame who worked at the bank before retiring to the country and writing 'The Wind in the Willows'.  We also got to touch a bar of gold which was worth over £200,000.  It felt warm and kind of soft.  We also saw lots of cartoons from Punch in which a human representation of 'The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street' appeared regularly.  Most of all I loved seeing examples of the enormous books in which peoples account details were recorded in beautiful loopy handwriting.  The book containing Handel's account details was on display.  I decided that I want my account recorded like that in the future.  Much nicer than a run of the mill computer printed statement.  I wonder how Barclays would react if I asked them!

Postman's park is a little park near St Pauls Cathedral in the City of London.  It's called Postman's Park because it is next door to the former head office of the Post Office.  Mum wanted to go there as she had read about George Frederic Watts' 'Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice' which is the main feature of the park.  Watts' created the memorial in 1900 to commemorate the lives of ordinary people who had been killed saving the lives of others.  Each person has been given a beautiful tiled plaque detailing their heroic action.  Some of those remembered are children as young as 10 years old who lost their lives saving others - usually younger brothers or sisters.  It's a very peaceful area and I guess unique to London.  The nice thing is that the Diocese of London have rediscovered the memorial and added someone to it in 2007 - the first addition in nearly 80 years.  Long may it continue.

We'd planned to get a river boat down to Tate Britain in the afternoon but the Bank of England Museum took longer than we expected so there wasn't time.  We decided to visit the Clockmaker's Museum in the Guildhall instead as it was close by and my mum loves clocks.  The Clockmaker's Museum is certainly one of the 'hidden gems' of London museums.  Although it is well signposted it is actually quite hidden away in the corner of the modern building which forms part of the Corporation of London offices.  We were the only visitors for a long time.  The museum contains the collection of The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers.  Unsurprisingly this consists of lots and lots of clocks and watches.  I had no idea that London had a thriving clockmaking trade from the 17th Century to the 19th Century.  The company is still going today but it's members tend to make one off commissioned work.  Some of the clocks and particularly the pocket watches on display were absolutely beautiful.  The precision work and creative effort that went into making the movement of a tiny watch was quite remarkable.  Even the watch keys on display were stunning.  It was a very sweet little museum and well worth a visit on a rainy day (but only if you like clocks obviously)

I can't believe that it will be September next week.  If I'd still been working at the College enrolment duties would have started last Thursday.  Mum's school starts back a week on Monday and then the next thing will be Christmas.  Someone in my office found a random decoration which had been left up since last Christmas today so it must be almost time to start putting them up again.  There is quite a lot to look forward to in the interim.  I'm hoping to go up to Leicester with my parents at half term on another family tree investigation.  Then we have a big launch party for work at The House of Lords at the beginning of December.  I am ridiculously excited about getting to take a look around.  My friend goes fairly often with her job and she says it's amazing. 

I've just finished watching a double episode of The Tudors.  I hadn't seen it before.  It was an interesting interpretation of historical fact.  King Henry is ageing remarkably well and it's terribly melodramatic.  Despite it's shortcomings it was great for 'oh, isn't that the bloke who was in...' moments.  I spotted the chap who played Gary's colleague George in Men Behaving Badly and the chap who played Dan Hunter in Hollyoaks.  Also, my brother in law's friend Max Brown was in it and he was credited as 'Guest Starring' at the end rather than just being lumped in with the rest of the cast.  He must be on the up (as they say).

I am having yet another minor technical disaster. This is particularly low tech technical disaster. The top drawer in my freezer has jammed solid and I can't get it open. A tub of Asda Taste the Difference ice cream has been in said drawer for several months. It is on it's side as it wouldn't fit upright. It now seems to have been pushed back further than normal and is wedged behind the metal cooling bits at the top. As a result the drawer won't open and a grand total of one chicken breast and four tortilla wraps (and the ice cream itself) are trapped. I can't see any way of rescuing them short of attacking the drawer with a saw of some description. This is clearly undesirable. Oh dear! Do other people get in these sort of messes or is it just me?!

Additionally, I have a cold. It started on Sunday afternoon as a sore throat, turned into a sore throat and temperature yesterday and is now firmly in runny nose territory. I blame all the changes in the weather. My poor old body just can't cope!