Hyperreal

This has been a weird week so-far…

On Tuesday I found out my water was going to be off on Thursday (today.)

On Wednesday morning my shower wouldn’t turn off properly and dripped. Trying to fix it, I managed to break even more so it was a stream of cold water. Hmm…

It’s a “pressure balanced” mixer, fed from my combi boiler and mains cold water. The boiler is quite new, and the shower is quite old. I don’t think it can stand the pressure (if you excuse the rather weak pun.)

So, now would be a good time to figure out the water supply in my flat. There’s a tap under the sink that I thought controlled all the cold water. Nope. Turns out there’s a second tap for a second cold water supply entering my flat hidden in behind the bath where it is almost impossible to get to.

Of course, because the boiler is in the kitchen, I need to turn off both supplies to isolate the mixer from the water supply. Hmm…

A quick investigation of the shower led me to decide it would take a plumber to fix it. I arranged for a plumber on Friday morning. I was offered an emergency visit after 5pm Wednesday evening, but I figured I could live a day or so with some awkwardness in the supply of water to my bathroom, I’d be out most of Thursday, and I’d be able to go out dancing on Wednesday evening.

Before I headed in to work (after taking the morning off) I did some further investigation, found the manual for the shower and looked up the trouble-shooting guide. It said a shower that doesn’t turn off needs a new cartridge unit. Cool, that’s easy to sort then, assuming the plumber can get the part.

After thinking about that for a while, and doing some “pounds per hour” calculations, I decided I’d go buy the part myself on my way home. Found it too, at the second place I tried (just along the road from the first place.) Now all I need to do is persuade the plumber that this is what’s wrong, and get him to fit my new part. And how hard can that be???

So so-far this has been all fairly bad stuff. Meanwhile, some good stuff was happening. I had a good night dancing on Tuesday, and an even better night on Wednesday. On Tuesday I complained I had to do all the asking lately, but last night things seemed in better balance. I got some genuine compliments on my dancing, some good advice on a problem move for me, a chance to try out a couple of new moves, and (and this is maybe the one I’m most proud of) I managed to say “the cheekiest thing she’d ever had said to her” to a girl there.

Bad point last night was finding that my jacket had disappeared. Fortunately it hadn’t gone far – seems that someone moved it. I don’t know why. I’m sure it wasn’t me.

The other cool thing that happened yesterday was the arrival from Apple of my shiny new PowerBook (that I’m now typing this on) and iPod mini. (And some other bits and bobs.) Had them delivered to work, so had to carry the PowerBook (in its rather elegant case) to the plumber’s merchants’. I looked so out of place, even if I don’t wear a suit – me with my laptop case, dressed in “smart, but casual” next to all these plumbers in their boiler suits, and the like.

Wednesday ended with me having another look at the shower – to see if I could have one – and just making it worse. Now, it’s not a drip, or a stream, no – it’s gushing. Had a bath instead – first bath in ages and ages.

Today has been a bit mixed to. Even though I was extra prepared for the water being turned off at 8 am, it hadn’t gone off before I left for work at about 9.30. I had planned to be out tonight, but friends let me down. So I got home to find the water board are mid-way digging up my road, but there’s no evidence of them having even started to replace the pipes they were meant to finish today, nor any evidence that my water had been off at any time during the day.

So, if I had known these two things, I’d maybe have gone dancing tonight to Rutherglen, plus I’d not be faced with this dilemma…

I fully expect they’ll do the water stuff tomorrow. At the same time I’ve got a plumber coming to fix water-related things. How is he going to know if he’s sorted it if there’s no water supply to test it with???

I can see trouble ahead…

There’s been other good and bad things in work and stuff, but compared to some of this, totally forgettable.

Stay tuned for an update tomorrow, I guess….