Slowlycatchymonkey

Yes tis classed as very hard water. Not a lot you can do about it really apart from accept anything that uses tap water is going to have a shortened lifespan. Ive switched the boiler off (wasn’t expecting to be sitting here with a fan on mid February ), the morning might be a bit fresh!

Always best to check. So I did and it’s dandy.

That bit I’m certain about. Electrics I can manage.. to an extent... if it’s obvious.. almost full proof.. which it was The downside- I’ve exhausted the things I’m confident doing and will have to pay the plumber to fix it but on the upside I got to go out in my bike in the sunshine to pick up first the thermostat and then back out for the heating programmer, bit of an expensive ride but I’m getting used to spending money on parts I don’t need

The motorised valve or the temp sensor? Not that it much matters, electrical stuff I don’t mind but anything with more explosive tendencies I’m happy to hand over to someone else.

Oops getting mi fuels mixed up LPG was the old house Pretty certain the wirings good. Faulty temp sensor sounds like it’s a contender. The plumber just rang back he’s certain it’s the motorised valve?!

It’s definitely not a combi. Is an oil fired Worcester Bosch boiler jobby. Have always used the immersion for hot water cos LPG not cheap.

Your going to need a warning on the door- ‘large vehicles must reverse in’ or perhaps a standard ‘max width’ sign would do

Hmm I feared the word valve would appear at some point!

The room stat was definitely broken but replacing it has mad no difference. The boiler was on the lowest setting and is still chomping it’s way through enough LPG to heat a mansion.

People who want to keep their approved garages in clover.

Replaced thermostat and no joy. About to replace timing programmer (same one a pretty basic ‘Iflo’ which has been rebranded as drayton) so if this fails what next? Im inclined to assume after these two things have been replaced it’s the the boiler and likely beyond me but you never know one of you lot might say “Ah check it’s not a sticky switch on the blah blah” Crikey this months been ridiculously expensive and now very bloody hot

Im not put off a jacket that comes without armour because I prefer to buy armour that is a close fit (which should in turn perform better in the event it’s needed). The Knox armour is very good and it comes in so many sizes you can get a good fit for pretty much any size armour pocket eg their back armour comes in 6 different sizes. I’ve switched the supplied armour over to Knox in three jackets because it’s simply much better. A lot of people don’t use the back protector because it’s uncomfortable. Even though it’s sensible I don’t like them.

I’m torn on this one. It seems petty but I think it’s not the full picture. It says he collected 3 bags of leaves and is pictured with a huge green bag so just how much did he dump? The country lane he dumped them down is covered by CCTV this is usually because fly tipping is rife and the owners sick of it. It also says he was caught on camera emptying the bags on the side of a lane so just how far into ‘a wooded area’ did he take them? Not far enough if they had to then remove them. He did half a job. He tidied up some leaves and dumped them on someone’s else’s property. He should have followed the rules and gone to the skip, he just couldn’t be bothered. I live down a lane I get fed up with people dumping their waste (including garden waste) down here, the tips only 10 minutes from where I live. Lazy buggers.

I won’t pretend I didn’t hesitate before starting the thread but then I thought even grumpy men like food and what with the lockdown n weather food is one of the joys most of us can still indulge in! My mother despised fillers so we never had them or most of the other normal cheap staples who were according to her “for people who can’t afford to buy enough meat” Yes she’s nuts.

Superb Sorry I didn’t take a picture Thing is I never make them because I was never a fan. They just seemed like large bland lumps of batter but I realise now that is precisely the point of them. It was highlighted beautifully today by the rich beefy red wine sauce from the bourguignon and the contrast of the plain Yorkshire. My husband even said “l think I’d like to have this dish for my birthday lunch” which is remarkably pedestrian by his standards

Forgot it’s Valentine’s Day. Sounds good. Did the children have the same? Lunch did the Yorkshire’s to go with Beef bourguignon (thanks @Bender for the method) with a caramelised onion, tarragon and mustard bread base which was reminiscent of dumplings so everyone was nicely carbed up even before the Queen of Puddings. Fully stupefied we have spent the rest of the day lying like beached whales but what else are cold dreary Sunday afternoons for?!

Yer. Tis a long time in a hot oven and seems a lot more work than slinging it in a slow cooker or on a low temp overnight so I wondered if there was some advantage. I’m not a fan of repeatedly getting things in and out of the oven if I don’t have to

Very nice. Is there an advantage over slow cooking it?

Great stuff.

Can I move in?

The managers who used to sort out the annual leave seemed to have forgotten they have only bought your life for a certain number of hours and behaved liked they owned your life. They behaved disgracefully, granting annual leave to people they liked and refusing requests from people they didn’t. It was a power trip of disgusting levels. I never fell foul of them and was always granted what I requested. It was very difficult because I’d been privy to their conspiratorial sniggers as they punished someone they deemed unworthy and whilst I was busting to tell them what I thought of their behaviour and lack of managerial skills I didn’t want to end up on the wrong side of things working lates and having holidays refused!

You sicko

They did this at the Bristol hospitals. So you couldn’t swap days with anyone, couldn’t book your holiday based on what time was actually available and would just get an email saying your request had been rejected. So trying to book time off or arrange appointments became a nightmare. They went on and on about how great the new system was and when demonstrating how it worked accidentally switched the computer off. Being the ancient creaking lumps of outdated technology the computers are we all sat there in silence for over 10 mins while it decided whether it wanted to start up again or not In the end we went back to using a paper diary which was then transferred to the computer. They used it to torture the managers about staffing levels. It really did turn into a case of “the computer says no”

Brilliant I forgot about Teppenyaki. Wonder wot I did with it?