T O T K a t

I have a new one.

I finish at lastminute.com on 19th October, then have two weeks off. I start at Monitise on 5th November as their (Global) Infrastructure Manager. They have some cool products: Accode, a two factor authentication product; and their main product, mobile banking.

We have two now. And two loos, two extractor fans and two sinks (plus a kitchen sink), but only one bath. Not all in the same room.

We still have scaffolding though.

And, for some unknown reason, this morning the boiler lost contact with the thermostat and now won't turn the heating on for love nor money. (Fixed now... the battery compartment in the thermostat wasn't properly closed so the thing had lost power at some point and thus lost the connection to the boiler.)

The bathroom is actually finished. Tiling, painting, bespoke shower curtain rail, sealing the sink and bath, everything. Has been since Monday night. And I've showered in it several time since. And used the towel rail. Which was nice.

The ensuite has tiling down to the bottom row on the walls where the wall tiles need to abut the floor tiles (which are a bit too warm in colour for my preference, but tough poop now). The shower fitting needs putting on and the shower walls and doors. The loo needs putting back in and the sink putting in place (all of the plumbing work is long done, it's just putting the china in place that's left). And then that's the ensuite finished too.

Then we get to paint the loft. And then get someone in to paint the hall, stairs, landing, stairs and landing (yes, both lots of stairs and landing). Then carpet that lot and the top bedroom. And that's this bit of building work completely done.

Bathroom nearly nearly finished, but the builders have gone. Everything is in, but the sink isn't connected to the hot and cold water, the pedestal isn't positioned and the shaver point isn't connected. Bah. Still, I've put up the window film so that we can use the loo and bath without the neighbourhood being able to watch. It's a shame they didn't finish off the sink; from what I can see all they needed to do was to connect the pipes on the sink to the pipes coming out of the wall and turn on the water (they're just nuts to do up and a screwdriver control for the water) so I'm a bit confused why that didn't happen today. It could be that the less senior of the builders isn't allowed to do that by himself and the other one left earlier than him. Oh well. Bathtime now. And I can have one with the lights on this time!

...to Movable Type v4.0 and it is a very different interface. Quite lovely really. No hitches at all (probably because I'd taken the time to back things up first. it's like taking an umbrella out to make sure it doesn't rain :o))

I'm at home this weekend instead of at a weekend birthday celebration at a lovely house with some great people, eating good food and drinking good wine and generally having a good time. This is because my cold is not a lot better.

The main bathroom will be finished today, though. The tiling is done, the vinyl is down, the bath has been in for a week now and the cupboards and paint were finished this morning. It's just the sink, loo and fittings left to finish and that will be done by the end of the day. Ensuite in the loft has a working toilet and a shower tray in place, but the tiling, sink, shower screen and fittings left to do. That will start on Monday.

The scaffolding is still here though, two weeks after they're done with it. This is annoying.

But... I am _so_ pleased with the garden. It's appreciably bigger now and I love it. The block paving is great and the new drain cover is one of those ones that has blocks of paving sunk into it, so it is much nicer than the old one. The finish we're getting on the building work is really good, it's such a shame that the damned plumbers delayed everything pretty much by two weeks which has caused the bathroom work to slow down to a trickle after the builders had to go off and start another job so we ended up with just one for the last week.

We have a huge bath. It's 1750mm by 750mm and pretty deep. It's plumbed for hot and cold water and for waste. So despite the unfinished tiling and floor and lack of anything else in the bathroom, including a door or blind, I had a bath today just before diner. And it really helped make me feel a bit better.

I have a weird cold-like thing with knobs on at the moment. I'm taking Sudafed, and I notice when it's almost time for the next one because my temperature starts to go up. I'm dehydrating very easily so need to keep drinking lots. And breathing is hard work, so going up 2 flights of stairs to go to the loo today (the loo in the ensuite in the top bedroom is plumbed in, but not bolted to the floor, but the loo in the main bathroom is still in boxes on the floor in the lounge) was a knackering experience. I run out of Sudafed after my first one tomorrow, so I'll at least have to go out and buy some more.

We had hot water for a little while. But then we turned on the washing machine. And the fuse blew on the switched fused socket. There are two of those in the kitchen, one for the dishwasher, one for the washing machine. Both of those appliances are rated at 13A. The boiler had been spurred off the one for the washing machine and the fuse replaced with a 3A fuse. So, er, of course the washing machine just blew the fuse.

We were not amused.

It is being fixed today.

The only bad part of the whole building project has been the plumbers. They've been botching and short-cutting and late and disorganised and it's held up everything by a week and a half so far. Very not happy about them. And it meant 15 days (so far) with no hot water. Which is fine(ish) during the week when we can shower at work, but at the weekends...