Holiday season comedown

Christmas feels like a distant memory. The actual festive week was spent in Suffolk with a group of friends at two converted farm houses on Partridge Farm. The region is famous for its fixation with food, and there was no shortage of really impressive pubs, farmers markets and restaurants. Aldeburgh is worth a visit for (apparently) the best fish and chips in the UK. We ate at The Regatta instead as the chef used to be at The Connaught. Might go back in summer to sample the fish and chips.

Christmas itself was spent gorging ourselves on smoked goods from the nearby Richardson's Smokehouse in Orford, and watching lots of movies. No stress. It rained cats and dogs pretty much non-stop but when you're in front of an open fire in a onesie no-one seems to mind. Actually that's not entirely true - I kept dropping food on myself and remarked that the onesie seems to be repelling food and my pal said 'It repels more than food.'

Just after New Year (spent in London - rare) we took the girls to Paris for four nights and despite a long list of 'must sees' only managed a fraction. I really recommend Paris in January - it's virtually deserted compared to London. We went up the Eiffel Tower and didn't have to queue (€16 for all four of us) - I had the best frites of the trip up on the L1 cafe. We stayed a hotel recommended on Trip Advisor for families - the Residence Foch. Get a Junior Suite aka a family room if you go - it means the kids are in another room with their own TV. We shut the door on ours and watched back to back episodes of Breaking Bad.

An efficient way to see the sights with kids is the Fat Tire Bike Tour - nearly 4 hours of gentle cycling with an English speaking tour guide (with the kids on a tandem, or if they're really small in a baby seat) for €90.

So, back to London and this year probably won't see much in the way of renovation as we're saving up to go back to New Zealand for a (long overdue) trip to see friends and family. One thing we would like to address is our front door though - I've got Anglian coming round to give a quote on Friday night. I've read about their heavy handed sales techniques but am optimistic that the sales fella will want to be anywhere than our house all night on a Friday night. Will report back!

Christmas 2012

After last the last two years of (enormous) real trees I was actually really happy to return to my fibre optic favourite. It may not make the house smell like fresh pine but hey, it didn't cost over £50 to get delivered, or have to be re-ordered due to arriving broken and because I've used it for 8+ Christmases it makes for an ecological choice.

It also makes for a lazy person's dream - just plug it in and viola, the lights change colour. The usual decorating effort requires four pairs of hands on deck and several hours.

I actually submitted this photo to the Camp Bestival Christmas tree competition where 95% of the entries are of proper trees (I'm sure not all could be from this year as some were submitted weeks ago). I was delighted when someone left a comment on mine saying 'That's the best by far :)' - not sure if he was being sarcastic or not, the bucket kind of spoils the shot. As does the messy pile of crap on top of the Sky box.

The bucket is there btw to catch those pesky intermittent drips, yeah it's STILL leaking but thankfully nowhere near as much as before...

Thanks to being burgled while we slept just before Christmas two years ago, we now double lock the doors when we're inside. Next year we'll replace the front door with a high security spec model. All our neighbours now have ADT security alarms installed too.

I hope our burglar is having a thoroughly unproductive time this year as people get more savvy about security. But I wish a very happy Christmas to everyone else!

Hello winter

SO. Sunfold came back last week with the engineer and spent over an hour lifting out the windows (vents) from their frames, cleaning out quite a bit of gunge and resealing with what looked like Polyfilla. Then it didn't rain for more than 15 minutes for an entire week. I waited and waited. We had a bit of snow apparently (didn't see it, must've melted by the time I got up). I've never wanted it to rain so much before. Finally, it rained. Last night it rained solidly for hours. And guess what? IT STILL LEAKS.

The good news is, it definitely doesn't leak as much. As far as I can tell the six leaks are now down to one though this might be a case of speaking too soon. The vents tend to fill up with water and drip hours after the rain's stopped, so it's possible they're still filling up.

The one leak is a nice bold drip which falls intermittently. The bucket has a very small pool of liquid at the bottom which is a nice improvement on the three inches of water it was accumulating in 24 hours.

The next step in our mission to not have leaks is to replace the windows/vents. And if that doesn't work we need to adjust the pitch of the roof to force the water to run off better. I'm not convinced by the pitch argument as surely the roof should be water tight? If water can't run off, shouldn't it puddle instead of coming inside? Or maybe that's just me being old fashioned.

To add to the seasonal change, the leaves have dropped so the light in the extension is a watery winter harshness. Instead of looking at lushness we can see the neighbour's house again. (Pictured at top)

Giant bean bag

Last year I meant to get a bean bag: I thought it would be useful for the overflow if we had loads of people on the sofa, or as extra outdoor seating on our lawn. I never got around to it, and the X Factor final came and went with ten of us squashed on the sofa or on cushions on the floor.

This year I got proactive and ordered one after a friend sent me a link to made.com. The colours I wanted were out of stock so I settled for chocolate brown and a week later it duly showed up. Despite articles written about made.com's (lack of) customer service in the press and various complaints on Twitter I'm happy to say that my experience with them was absolutely trouble free.

The only problem was the size - Rob said if he knew just how big the bean bag was going to be he would've vetoed it. As it happens it takes up a LOT of floor space but at least the kids can both lie on it without annoying each other.

Plenty more leaks

I should have updated immediately after the last post. I just couldn't bear it. The next morning we got up to find not only did we have the dreaded leaks back, but they were worse than ever before.

A bucket we put down had three inches of water within a few days. The previous polite and intermittent drips now almost rained down (no pun intended) - not necessarily when it was raining, but hours later. And it leaked in several places. Again. This is not what we had in mind by 'bringing the outdoors in'.

Sunfold agreed to come back a week later with an engineer from the steel manufacturers. The engineer duly showed up but unfortunately the Sunfold guy couldn't make it due to having a kid off school. The engineer refused to come inside and take a look without the Sunfold rep there. I pleaded but no, he said his gov'nor wouldn't allow it. So that was that. Three weeks since the 'fix-it' job and two weeks since the engineer couldn't come in, and still no sign of a rescheduled appointment.

I'm convinced that the steels are at fault as the rubber seals have been redone so many times. Probably from having the vents drilled in after they were manufactured, instead of at the same time.

Pictured is a nice view of east London taken from the London Eye last week. No rain.

No more leaks?

PROGRESS: Sunfold Systems decided to send a team of fitters to sort out these leaks properly. The idea being to lift out each pane of (enormous) glass and re-fit them, re-seal them and thus stop the leaks.

Rob and I spent an hour last night clearing every bit of furniture and associated debris from downstairs underneath the glass (ie most of the dining room). I did 20+ trips up and down the stairs while Rob dealt with the fiddly stuff. We then stacked the heavier bits and watched the drips land on our artfully arranged selection of pots and trays.

I managed to damage our Arco lamp when I thought I was unscrewing the bulb but was in fact shearing off the fitting including the wires. (Fortunately Rob knows how to resurrect this from his distant past as a scientist with a qualification in electricity or similar).

Sunfold's crack team arrived this morning ON TIME at 8.30am and were done by lunchtime. After so many visits which ranged from no show to late to not resolving the issue, I was beyond happy.

Apparently our problem was caused because the frames the vents (windows) sit on leaked at the joints - which is a manufacturer fault as they come pre-fabricated. It's Sunfold's responsibility to remedy even though the frames are manufactured in Germany. I am waiting for a rain storm so I can confirm that everything is water tight. Everything is crossed.

TV & wires

Our last two TVs have been Sony Bravias. Mainly because of that excellent ad with the animated plasticine animals. The most recent TV was purchased in November 2008 (RRP £1,000) and a few months ago it started to act odd. Half the screen would remain blacked out until it warmed up - which took between 10 and 15 minutes, depending on the room temperature.

A look at various TV forums revealed that this was a common fault but despite this there was no product recall. Sony suggested we take the TV to their approved repairer, pay for an assessment and if indeed it was the faulty panel, they'd replace it otherwise we'd have to foot the bill for a repair.

Long story short: we couldn't be bothered taking it to the repairer, whose opening hours weren't exactly helpful and they were five miles away. Rob decided he wanted an internet ready TV and a highly recommended Toshiba fit the bill for a lot less than we paid for the Sony. The Toshiba has a ridiculous 46" screen, which is only one centimetre deep.

Pictured at top is the Toshiba on our Ikea cabinet. The Sky box, Wii and DVD player are now inside the cabinet and powered by a Marmitek Infrared extender.

We bought this thing four years ago with the aim of getting rid of the mass of wires under the cabinet. It's taken this long for Rob to get motivated to set it up. Hopefully it works OK as it came with a 2 year warranty which is obviously void now!

Here's the mess of wires inside the cabinet... so much better than being under it...

Tap is sorted

This domestic lark is getting beyond boring. The new (3rd) kitchen tap is in. This one cost £150 and is made of better stuff than the previous two. The builders couldn't fit it, so I endured a session of Rob's colourful pronouncements as he attempted to get it to join up with the pipes. Anyway, it's in and it works fine and I actually prefer the spray action on this one than its predecessor. There's a lesson in there somewhere: a cheap tap that doesn't fit is a waste of £50.

No sign of the replacement part for the hot water heater, and no update from Sunfold Systems about coming back to sort out the leaky roof. Fortunately it hasn't rained for more than half an hour for weeks. Does anyone out there actually have a 100% finished house where nothing goes wrong? Give me something to look forward to, please...

Photo of the tap would've been too dull for words, so here's my set-up from Saturday night: we were eating locally but my record box is too heavy to lug, so I used the trolley I bought for moving gear around at festivals. The gig was in West London (£25 taxi each way, ouch, could've bought another tap) and the soundsystem was awful - one of the turntables constantly skipped despite realignment, and the output from the desk was substandard. Disappointing as I actually played a good set, shame it was difficult to hear...

AMENDMENT

Here is a photo of our tap. Butler of London is the brand BTW.

Tap, leaks & cartridges

I've just ordered a home delivery meal as plans to make dinner were scuppered when our lovely Polish builders popped round. Initially they were going to sort the leaking hot water heater under our stairs. A plastic nut had cracked, so water was leaking for about 2 weeks before we noticed it. There's bound to be water damage but I'm not motivated to empty the cardboard boxes that are stored under there just yet.

The builders then tried to install our replacement kitchen tap. Which unfortunately turned into a massive breakage. The concrete counter has a hole drilled through it, but there's nowhere for the vice to attach to, to hold the tap still. The part that should hold it in place has sheered off from the jiggling. Now we have no tap installed and the contents from under the kitchen sink cupboard are spread out all over counter top.

It's not the builder's fault, it's just one (or two) of those things. Hopefully replacement parts can be procured tomorrow. Otherwise we're in trouble as it means no tap until the builders get back from their next job.

On a positive note, I finally got proper cartridges for my decks and learned how to adjust the tone arms. Immediately my vinyl sounded 100X better. They're Numark CC1's if you're interested (pictured). They're not the top of the range by any stretch but for around £80 a pair they're a lot more affordable than other options. Really wish I'd done it sooner.

Sunfold Systems still suck

After a very exasperated phone call explaining that the Olympics actually meant light traffic, we got a new (!) slot for the service team to come round. We were assured by both the booking person and the head of installation that we'd be the first call out this morning. Guess what? No-one had showed up by 11am. Or midday. In fact, they didn't show up until the middle of the afternoon, saying that there was nothing on the call sheet about us being the first call out. (What is wrong with this company?!)

Rob had worked from home so he'd be there to explain the problems himself. Apparently the service chap was perfectly lovely and agreed that Mastick, debris, unusual shrinkage etc were not acceptable reasons for the number of leaks we were enduring. He's going to order up replacement vents and metres of rubber and replace as much as possible. This will be a full day's job. (The last time Sunfold Systems were meant to do a 'full days work' it lasted for several days, so I won't hold my breath).

Fortunately we have a 10 year warrantee. I hope these leaks are sorted before the 10 years is up!