Sundry irritants

As it’s been an uneventful week in terms of constructive activity, thought I would just detail various irritants, for the sole purpose of getting them off my chest:

Last Friday
Waited in at home for British Gas engineer to come and look at our ageing combi boiler, which has started dispensing hot water intermittently, as and when it feels like it. Very polite young man who did his best to be helpful, but concluded that the problem was likely to be mainly due to limescale, both of the bath taps (easily replaceable) and of the boiler’s internal heat exchanger (probably RIP boiler). He assessed the age of the boiler as ’20 years plus’ – the amusing latest in a whole series of estimates by previous engineers. When we first signed up to British Gas’s Homecare agreement, its age was assessed at around 15 years. In August 2008, a couple of years later, it had evidently undergone a bit of a rejuvenation and was estimated to be around 10 years old. In the eight months since then, things evidently haven’t gone well for it.

Sunday
Was feeling at a bit of a loose end so persuaded Ruth to come out for a bit of air. Something led me to suggest going over to Newbury to visit the Kennet & Avon Canal Trust shop which, according to the website is open on Sunday. It wasn’t, but I’ll get to that in a minute. When we arrived at Reading station to get the train, we discovered that due to engineering works, trains to Newbury were departing from Reading West station, a dilapidated haven-for-muggers a mile or so outside the town centre. We waited half an hour for a bus to take us on a 5-minute bus ride to Reading West, then waited for about another 20 minutes for the train to Newbury to depart. On arrival at Newbury, we made our way over to the Wharf to the Canal Trust shop. My vague purpose for the visit had been to buy Ray a small teapot or similar knick-knack, decorated in the classic roses and castles design. Luckily for him, though somewhat annoyingly for us, there was a typewritten notice pinned up outside the shop telling us that it was closed. To console ourselves, we spent around £100 between us on new tops from White Stuff. We also wandered up to my old school to see if we could see any evidence of the rumoured demolition of the Luker site, but everything looked much as I remembered it. Eventually made our way back to Reading around 6pm and decided to take our minds off various stresses by having a nice (and well lubricated) dinner in The Griffin.

Tuesday
Took day off work to wait in for Virgin Media men to come and install new cable TV and broadband setup. They arrived without the USB adapter that I had been reliably informed over the phone a week earlier that they would be bringing with them. Then spent quite some time detailing the complex amount of cabling that would be necessary to route the broadband line into the second bedroom, at which point I queried the necessity of so much cable for a wireless setup, to which they responded “oh yeah well if you’re having wireless you don’t need the cable”. (D’oh! Don’t they prime these people beforehand?). They eventually left and, after a few further hitches involving tedious calls to overseas call centres, I seem to be finally set up (I think). Hardly the flawless procedure that Virgin’s advertising blurb reckons it is though.

Never had wireless before and the whole set up is a bit novel. Particularly the stage just before you sign on to your own wireless network, where you get to see a list of all your neighbours’ networks as well. Reminded me of the occasion while I was living in Essex a few years ago where having the Pause button down on my portable cassette player appeared to allow me to hear my elderly neighbour on his CB radio.