A whole lotta work…

[Bob Williams]

…For me, anyway. I think this will answer questions from Forumites asking how my problem situations are getting on.

Health is improving: chemo seems to be going well and I am feeling so good this week that I am tackling several jobs. The landlord sent a really good, old style worker who removed our fireplace, 60’s back boiler, piping and sealed the inside. Then sealed the outside with special thick purple gunk, which apparently draws any moisture left from the inside and breathes it out to the outside air, over a period of 12 hours. I have had a fan blowing behind it, towards the lounge windows which I opened a crack and locked. It was well dried out when he returned, but blimey did it stink while drying! He made a great job of plastering over his brickwork that finally sealed the fireplace and installed a vent. He gave me the interesting information that our landlord, a big Housing Association that is about to merge with another, no longer has a Stores. So they dump any unused supplies after a job. A lot of waste happens with this landlord. When a property becomes vacant, they send in a ‘Void Properties’ team which rips out carpets and any other fittings, garden features etc. Any carpets and textiles, go to Landfill. Any electrical, green waste (flowers, bushes, trees, etc.) electronics or electricals, they send to the waste dump. We inform families of deceased residents and friends, that they should remove anything from the property and garden, as they are likely to be charged for the work, Mean buggas!

The workman left me: a bag of cement, some bricks, breeze blocks, a massive sheet of thick, industrial Polythene and a bag of expensive mortar. When I talked about having to strip out my shed and lift it away from next door’s fence to paint, he disappeared into the van, “Been looking for someone who needs this, it’s a special paint I have left over from another job. You can paint it on the inside of the shed wall, it goes through to the outside and seals all cracks. but wear gloves: it can be harmful to skin.” What a nice man! It pays to keep the teapot and coffee pot hot, with a good supply of biscuits!

Anyway, after all that, today I set to and stripped all the old horrible wall paper from chimney breast and surrounding area. Took ages. Then I filled in, rubbed down and smoothed  years of holes, cracks etc., wetted – down the last smoothing with Fine Grit2, then 1. The wall is as smooth as an infant’s rear portion, but vertically keyed to accept a couple of coats of cheapo white to prepare the new plaster (when it bloomin’ well dries!) for the top coats of a nice coffee colour that SWMBO is calling Beige. She likes beige, does my missus. Or something called Fawn. I like a nice dark, browner coffee and am determined to win this one: I don’t win many. Match pots from Wilko tomorrow, with some of their very cheap white Matt. There is a new lounge carpet on order, a nice gold-flecked light brown. With underlay, supplied and fitted by a local 2-man business. £300, good deal I thought. All to be done after painting finished. Then set up a new vertical TV stand with Humax, new LG DP542H Up-scaling DVD player with NFC, USB, optical and HDMI. Plus SCART if anyone still using that. Audio is from a pioneer DAB/FM HiFi and a USB record deck, plumbed into the HiFi. All to go on the 3- deck TV stand. I am looking forward to settling back to use all this kit and fighting SWMBO for the remotes. When I convert them all to one, which is what the LG DVD remote can do, I will have for suitably baffled for a few months.??

With all this, we are unable to set up more than Freeview HD, off to one side. I also have the new Canon printer to unbox and setup after all that is done.

The Plusnet saga appeared to be sorted with their message last night: “To be rectified and setup by 7 am tomorrow. Placed on Hold until then, customer to be informed tomorrow.” Next message this pm: “Placed on hold for further work by supplier. Please do not add further information to this Question unless it is absolutely necessary..” Oh, you can bet it is necessary! What happens to all these promises?”

Tomorrow I am attending yet another funeral, but this one is special to me. It is my oldest mate here in the Close: John T. and I ran the Resident’s association, turn and turnabout as Chair and Vice-chair, until the Secretary and Treasurer both retired and no one else would do the job, so it ended. We still organised Christmas Dinners and outings, but when interest faded we had to stop, as minibus prices went up for the lesser numbers. 2 years ago John developed Alzheimers and his wife died. As he slipped into oblivion, he no longer knew his daughters and they told us about the death of their dad, which to me was blessing. John had been such a big, active, fun loving guy who took no prisoners from those who upset him, his family and friends. A good bit older than me but physically very fit into his 80’s, it broke my heart when he no longer recognised me. I want to say a goodbye tomorrow to a bloke who was a respected by ourselves and everyone who knew him. A special guy.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[The Duke]

Great news on your health bob. I bet half the reason youre feeling better is, you don’t seem to have the time to be ill . Whatever it is, keep it up.

[Bob Williams]

Marital pressure causing most of it Steve. My missus has not missed me getting better, so the Jobs List is dug up again.

You know how it goes…

But I don’t mind, because I really am feeling good atm. When I am OK, I have to be given some work to occupy me, or I would probably get into some kind of trouble.??

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[The Duke]

Lol, I’m saving my jobs for retirement lol.

I always recall the joke from Romesh Ranganathan (yes that was c&p)

I don’t need to be the best husband, just slightly better than the impartially of devorce. Lol

 

[Dave Rice]

Blimey Bob. After sorting out the garage / workshop after the kitchen replacement I’ve done bugger all.

Mind you it’s hard to move here. #1 son is home with 7 years worth of independent living junk and daughter home from Uni for the summer with her similar junk. I will get fed up soon and do what I’ve been threatening, hire a secure lockup and chuck it all in.

[Bob Williams]

You are in a worse pickle than me, Dave! My ankle biters are now 48 and 50, theirs are 13 t0 24 and only the 13 yo comes to stay, usually no more than 2 nights when Mum & Dad are off somewhere. I look forward to granddaughter having a ‘sleepover’ though, as we can both go out together and indulge in some ‘daft granddad’ time.

But I once had the world’s Untidiest Son and got sick of picking up after him, clean & mucky stuff all over the bedroom floor, tools and parts everywhere. Came home from the garage for lunch, son at work: threw the lot out of the window. In the rain. Cue B********g from missus and son, but the threat to do that every time, cleaned up his act. Somewhat…

Has his own place, our senior Gdaughter left to live with BF and he is left with senior gson, who is just as untidy as he is. He has built 5 sheds on his backyard, gradual additions over the years to cope with all his Stationary Engines and associated projects. Backyard (very rural village) is littered with parts of engines and the cradles he makes to wheel them about.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[The Duke]

I did notice that when my lad finished uni, alot of his stuff made its way in to my house and mine vanished. Though I wasn’t moaning as he had a job in tk max and I hung he got some “discount” on all the good kitchen stuff. So we’re dected out with some great stuff.

But on the whole it took 6 months to get rid of the crap he came back with. He brought his whole uni bedroom back with him, so he had two beds, wardrobes etc… So it wad up to me to ditch the old stuff. I wouldn’t want them to strain a muscle.

There idea of ‘xzsort that out’ is dump it in the garden for dad to deal with.

[JayCeeDee]

A familiar story, Steve. Our version started a few years after uni. Him and his partner had bought a place by then, but they’d been renting a ‘loft’ apartment in Dockands, so all the post uni carp stayed with him. When he split up, that was when it came to my place for a visit and hasn’t moved on since. There’s a couple of early i7 base units, boxes of books of sci-fi/fantasy, video box sets of Buffy etc, seven other boxes of assorted carp in the garage, the list goes on.

He’s been renting for some years now, so the excuse has always been he’s only had limited space, but……………? Luckily we didn’t end up with any furniture because he needed that.

There’ll be some justice when I’m gone and it’ll be down to him to sort it all out but I won’t get to see that!!!

[The Duke]

Lol, he doesn’t think of your limited space. Lol. Start hoarding now, just so he has to sort it when your gone.

When I hit 60 I’m gonna stop throwing things out. If I hit 80 theyll be f-*ked Hehehe.

[Bob Williams]

I’m going the opposite way, chucking out stuff we have harboured for years. Shed has been part-stripped, had an outside storage box full of old paint and various decorating carp that we will never use. I was contemplating getting my son and gson to come and lift the shed out so I can get to the wet back wall, but the generous workman who took out our fireplace gave me some stuff to paint on the inside, that gradually works through to the outside and seals all the cracks. Put on the next layer, it waterproofs it. Thankful that my Magpie missus has given up saying “we might need this” and left my clearance efforts alone.

I have to start on my PC’s and components next, loads of stuff I will never use again, most of which is old tech. Files of “Help” printouts for various computing problems, most of which is in my head or retrievable anyway.

It’s all gotta go.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[JayCeeDee]

The Duke wrote:

Lol, he doesn’t think of your limited space. Lol. Start hoarding now, just so he has to sort it when your gone. When I hit 60 I’m gonna stop throwing things out. If I hit 80 theyll be f-*ked Hehehe.

 

That’ll be perfect revenge on the kids, ??but don’t forget the wife’s in that scenario too – in fact she’s at the front, in (y)our face and ears!!! ?

[Author]

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