Thursday (Day 23 – there was no post for Day 22)

So what happened to yesterday, slacker?

Well, you might have seen my quick post on Tuesday night to warn you that Wednesday might be a washout – and so it proved. The folk from SSE cam to renew the low voltage electricity supplies at our end of the village, which is to say that they completely replaced a whole series of wooden posts and electricity lines. A giant posse of SSE vehicles of various descriptions arrived sometime around 8am and camped out on the ‘back street’ down by Highland Spring. The vehicles spewed forth a mass of (as far as I could tell) blokes variously attired in shades of hi-viz yellow and orange, who set about the various tasks.

The power was already off by the time James went out with the dogs for their morning walk, so when he returned I was surprised to see him with two mugs of tea and two plates with foil-wrapped objects on them. The poor man had been so worried that I might faint or worse if I didn’t get breakfast that he had gone up to the village Shop-come-Post Office- come- takeaway food outlet and purchased hot beverages and food (fried egg roll for me, bacon roll for him). How lovely is that? (If you said anything less than ‘very’ there you should be ashamed of yourself! You’re just jealous).

Sadly, rather than perk me up, this fine repast just sent me to sleep and it was around 11am when the dogs and I came back to consciousness. Actually, they managed to revive themselves every 20 minutes or so to bark and one or more of the many unusual sounds coming from outside – I vaguely recall saying ‘Hush, puppies!’ or something similar a couple of times. Sadly, the last of the barky episodes wasn’t to alert me to the presence of the SSE hordes, but to tell me that the postie was knocking on the door with a parcel. But the time I roused myself both he and the parcel were gone, and just a sad little red card remained. Not such a bad result really, since I think it was our bulk order of doggy poop bags and I would have felt conspicuous having to ask him to bring it inside and put it down for me (3600 poop bags weigh rather a lot, even when empty!). One might think that I would be coming to terms with the whole ‘Sorry, but I’ve had brain surgery and I am not allowed to do much more than breathe for a few weeks’ excusing myself, but as a normally capable person it goes against the grain. I nearly said ‘fit’ there, but the only part of that I can lay claim to is the resting pulse of an Olympic athlete! Yes, in a straight race to hit the sofa and do bugger all for two hours I could leave Mo Farah and Christine Ohuruogu standing! And thanks to my intensive training regime I am confident that I could out-sit them too! Is it too late to get this included in Brazil 2016?

So, I was going to read a bit more Game of Thrones on my Nexus, but I stupidly forgot to power it up on Tuesday, so that was out. James had left me the MiFi, but I wasted about half of my laptop’s battery life making sure that the MiFi was powered up and a bit more by not turning the laptop to ‘low power’ mode much earlier, so by 2pm I was without computer and/or internet access. It probably didn’t help that around 1pm the SSE people were stringing the new electricity cable to the pole outside and I lost focus on the computer  so curious was I to see how it was all done. There were two blokes in hydraulic cradles attached to vans who were up at the top of the pole attending to the tightening of the cable, joining and finishing and a gaggle of guys at ground level doing pulling, yelling, and standing around looking important.

I sat with the dogs and had my lunch (cold veggie toad in the hole with piccalilli – yummy!), then I did the only thing that a person really can do in such circumstances – the dogs and I retired for an afternoon nap! It was just after 5pm when I woke up. I came out to the dining room to see if I could see any SSE vans, but they seemed to have gone and the street lamp attached to the electricity pole was on, so I thought that it was probably safe to plug things back in. I’m looking out now and that street lamp is still on. I’ll have to monitor it to see if it ever goes off.

The height of plug sockets

You don’t tend to think about it until you have a problem, but the height of most plug sockets is pretty person-unfriendly when it comes right down to it. Ours definitely are. But I’ve just looked it up, and things have changed now! I found a most helpful set of postings from July 2012 at http://www.diynot.com/forums/electrics/legal-height-for-plug-sockets.330811/ . It seems that ‘building regulations require sockets to be installed so persons (all persons) including those with restricted reach can easily use them. The requirement is for new dwellings and to satisfy the regulations, socket heights according to building regulations are to be installed at a height between 450mm and 1200mm from finished floor levels in habitable rooms’. I just want to share this exchange between the ‘OP’ (‘original poster’, person who asked the question initially) and one of the folk who responded, which made me laugh:

OP: (who has an older house with high skirting boards, which is where the sockets are currently located, and who is having a full rewire) ‘I now understand that in a modern house with small skirtings, the sockets would need to be higher, will have to explain myself betta when showing the electrician around again!, that the original skirtings will be replaced with similar height ones and i would like the sockets on the wall, to be close to the top of the skirtings, the reason being that it simply looks betta and neater to me!’

Responder: ‘You will soon get used to the 1990s, and then low sockets will look odd to you. One day you may be old, fat, pregnant, or have a bad back’.

To be fair, the OP takes that little slap on the wrist in good part. The thread continues on for a bit – there is a discussion of why the regulations might still not produce homes that are disabled friendly, e.g. where thermostat controls are not at a height where they can easily be read by someone in a wheelchair, and talks about why electricians will not want to move your electricity meter (because they are not allowed to – only the distribution network owner (electricity company) can work on the incoming electricity supply. Isn’t it great what you can learn on the internet!

Pizza – pile those toppings high!

James came home, walked the dogs, and then we watched a few back episodes of Modern Family (thank you Sky+ box!) and had pizza for dinner. My ‘half’ was loaded with smoked tuna slices (delicious, but takes some finding in most of the supermarkets!), black olives, capers, on top of the deep pan ‘vegetable supreme’ it had initially claimed to be.  You’d have to ask James what he had on his, but pepperoni, black olives and anchovies would spring to mind as most likely candidates.

And today, Al? What if anything happened today?

Well, I made my own porridge this morning. It was going to be strawberries and the last of the meringue pieces, but when I got them out of the fridge the strawberries had disappointingly put their furry winter coats on! So, I can report that meringue pieces are perfectly acceptable as a single topping, but not a thriller (or a Spurtle winner!).

For lunch I prepared myself potato pancakes (well, I heated them – they came, ‘potato with cheese and scallions’ in a packet) and salad with crispy ‘Cosmopolitan’ leaves, baby beetroot, cherry tomatoes and cucumber. It was tasty!

The rest of the day so far (it’s just gone 6pm) has been spent at the computer. Which means that this is the first day when I haven’t had an afternoon nap! I haven’t done anything productive at the computer, mind. Browsed and played a little, and typed you this missive, dear readers. But it’s a start!  (although I might have a little lie-down while James takes the dog out for their evening walk now).