Blog - Fixing Taps, Fixing Washing Machines, Shopping, and Mistresses (2008-01-13)

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Fixing Taps, Fixing Washing Machines, Shopping, and Mistresses (2008-01-13)

Category: Diary. Posted: 2008-01-15 23:44:44 GMT.

I woke up at about 8AM, but actually got up about half-an-hour later when I heard somebody up and about. I don't often sleep in the spare room, but had a reasonable night's sleep (no squirrels had got in over night). I went downstairs, and put the kettle on. Tom turned up soon after, and we started on the breakfast (bacon and egg sarnies). I thought I'd turned the smoke alarm off, but obviously hadn't, because it went off after a few minutes, and woke up those who weren't already awake! Just before going to bed last night, I had asked Dindin to look at the switch on my washing machine. He replied, "I can do, but I'll only take it apart, and tell you it needs replacing". Fortunately, I'd bought a new switch in September, so he wasn't getting out of it that easily! Tom came into the kitchen to help as well, so I just got them the tools that they needed, and let the men get on with the job.

After doing that, Tom started looking at my kitchen tap. He wasn't convinced that I would need to take the whole sink off, he was convinced we'd be able to remove the tap insert without doing so. Having already tried several times, I wasn't convinced, but went to get all my plumbing tools, just in case. After a while, he gave up too, but Dindin gave it a final go. With Tom holding the tap in place, and Dindin pulling as hard as he could, they eventually managed to start unscrewing the tap (they did agree that it was a two-man job though). We replaced that, and then tried replacing the cold tap. The cold tap was OK, but did need to be turned quite hard to actually turn it off. Between them, Tom and Dindin, unscrewed the cold tap fairly quickly, and we replaced that as well. The cold tap turned on OK, but didn't turn off very well. It seemed that the cold tap insert wasn't quite long enough - which seemed strange when the hot tap seemed to work OK. When we compared the existing hot and cold inserts, they were both of different lengths. Dindin started trying to make a new insert by combing bits of the old and new inserts, but I found another new insert which fitted perfectly. The only slight downside was that we couldn't find a screw that fitted the tap insert and the tap handle. This didn't matter, so we left it unscrewed. As a final job before leaving, I asked the boys to help me take the dishwasher out of the box, in case it needed to be lifted. Annoyingly, now my hot tap works OK, I don't actually need a dishwasher!

After everyone left (with Gordy borrowing one of my Coupling DVDs, but not being allowed to borrow my PHP/MySQL book), I started on the washing-up. It was brilliant having hot water running at full speed into my sink! I took it easy for the rest of the day - watching yesterday's Casualty and this week's Click. I did find time to go to B&Q to buy the bits that I needed to plumb in the washing machine. I knew that I could buy a screw-in connector for 15mm copper pipe, but was pleased to find that I could buy one for 40mm plastic waste pipe as well. I also bought some new swan-neck pliers (Tom had found that my old ones were a bit pants), and a longer cold-water infeed pipe, just in case the existing one wasn't quite long enough. I was going to go to Tesco on the way home to buy a new teapot, and some dishwasher salt, but it was after 4PM, so I couldn't. Back at home, I had a lot of sheets and towels to wash, so put on one load of washing.

Feeling quite tired, I went to the fish and chip shop to get some dinner, instead of cooking. As I put my shoes on, I realised why my socks got wet yesterday - there's a big hole in my shoe. That's not good - even more money to spend! I didn't get around to removing the cupboard, and replacing it with the dishwasher. I did, however, see a trailer for a programme called Mistresses, which is shown on Tuesday evenings at 9PM after Holby City. I'd missed the first episode, but the trailer look very promising on the totty front. The trailer did suggest using the IPlayer to watch the first episode, but I think I'll give that a miss for the moment!

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