Monday, April 20, 2009 at 04:37PM 
If I have to work somewhere, I reckon this will do nicely.
I took these on the way to try and teach the first years about threading in C#.
pictures Sunday, April 19, 2009 at 07:31PM Today the sun shone, the overflow was as dry as a dry thing from a dry desert in a drought, and all seemed well. Of course, the washing machine was taking longer to run, but that could just be down to us using a new “eco friendly” programme. Or could it?
Turns out the washing machine uses water. That is, it takes water in but then, having churned it around for a while, it seems incapable of getting it out again. So I had more wet hi-jinks as I had to drain the darned thing and see if any of the filters were bunged up. There was some lint here and there, but nothing that should have slowed things down much.
At the moment we are at a kind of impasse. The machine works, in that things come out cleaner than they went in, but it does spend a long time emptying itself. I’m inclined to suspect the pump as not actually doing the pumping thing properly, and so I guess I can look forward to a visit from the repair man and uplifting discussions as to just what is covered by warranty.
I’m starting to wonder when it will all end. I’m turning taps on with the expectation of either a huge bang or nothing. I’ve taken to swimming in my dreams, just in case the house floods at night. Is this how hydrophobia starts?
Life Saturday, April 18, 2009 at 05:24PM Don’t like water. Getting into the car on the way out today we noticed that the overflow I had “fixed” yesterday was still leaking slightly. So I left wife and daughter in the car on the drive while I scrambled, cursing, into the loft to bend the valve assembly and make sure that it shut down properly.
I don’t mind working with electricity. I’m not allowed to do gas (thank goodness) but I hate working with water. You can never be sure it won’t start leaking when your back is turned.
Life Friday, April 17, 2009 at 04:20PM On 17th Feb at 12:46 I made a singularly ill advised Tweet:
Ha! What do you call it when everything works? Oh yes. Rob is in the house....
Since then everything has broken. Water leaks too numerous to count, a broken heating system that cost a huge amount (wince) to fix. Cars that have needed new bits. And this morning our neighbour appeared on the doorstep with the less than welcome news that water was pouring from our loft.
Oh good.
Turns out that one of the ball valves on the header tank for the heating system was leaking, and the overflow was doing just what it should, which is nice. Fortunately I’m equal to this particular task, and so I went off to buy spares. Since I had to turn the water off, and there are two tanks in the loft, I replaced both ball valves at once. Apparently the practice of having a big tank of water in the loft is a curiously British thing that dates back to the Napoleonic wars, where there was some concern that the French could invade and cut off all our water. Or something. Actually, I heard that in a pub, so it might not be true.
Either way, there is nothing quite like spending your holiday banging your head against beams in the loft, whilst balanced perilously on a joist and trying to both tighten a leaking connector and avoid putting your foot through the ceiling.
While I was out buying valves I thought I’d get a replacement bath plug, because the one we have is looking a bit elderly. This way I could add some value to the day, and come out of it slightly ahead. The new one was very well packed, in a bag, in a bag, in a bag with tape wrapped all round it. I spent several careful minutes removing all the layers and throwing them away. Then I found the plug was the wrong size. I’m never going to Tweet again.
Life 