She said "No you cannot see, Oh no you cannot see- my naked body."

This song, this song in particular, reminds me of summer evenings, sitting on the porch of the little yellow house, watching the sun setting, with a plate of food, a bottle of beer, a couple of good friends, all of us lazing, dreaming, and Leonard Cohen  singing in the candle-lit house behind us.

Well At Least it Looks Clean

An Observation on Earthmovers

Earthmovers, bulldozers, diggers, they're often referred to in a somewhat negative way, earth-rippers, despoilers of the planet.

But on my way home from work today, a different side of the heavy plant story occurred to me, when I saw this...

 And this...

Yes, when the men in hard-hats and steel-toed boots leave the site, the  laughter and swearing's fading, engines are hushed, it's then, and only then, that you'll see the protective, nurturing instincts of a mother excavator.

What!????

Another Chilly Day

And now I'm home and it's snowing again.

Self Inflicted

Recently, I was told to put on my heating-repair-guru hat, and go try solve the chilly woes of a tenant. This guy rents several thousand square feet of warehousing plus an office from us. He grumbles, bitches  and moans, perpetually, about every little thing. A squeaking door hinge, a flickering light, a smell nobody else can detect. Usually these complaints come just after he's received a reminder that his rent payment is overdue. He rents the building on what is referred to as a full repairing lease, meaning that he's responsible for the interior state of the buildings, anything that fails or needs maintenance is up to him, when the lease ends, or is renewed, the premises must be in as good a state of repair and decoration as they were when the lease was signed.

We will do all the works, if required, and charge them to the tenant. This guy chose to get another contractor to do his heating service and repair, because he thought we were too expensive.

So, since the end of september, his heating in the warehouse has not worked. He got his contractor to service it, and the guy issued a certificate to say all was working correctly. He got his contractor to come back and fault-find the unit. Their diagnosis was that the ignition-control unit was shot, and very expensive to replace. They quoted him several thousand pounds for a new heater, which they said was only sensible, as, if they replaced the ignition, who could say something else, like the gas-valve, might be just waiting to expire? He hired mobile, (and expensive to run), heaters for his warehouse staff but only after they'd threatened to walk out.

Then, as a last resort, he rang our office and asked for me to come and quote for fixing the problem.

I started by undoing two screws, on the timer control, this is what I found.

Can you, dear reader, repair the heater for a minimal fee? In ten seconds or less?

Might the service contractor be either: a- incompetent, or: b- dishonest?

" Because it's Cold " is No Excuse...

In this case, the job had been planned for a while. New heating/air-con for the office, and because the contractors were pushed for time, or didn't like heights, or something, and didn't want to take the old outdoor units down, or fix the structure for the new ones, I apparently volunteered to do it. Amazing the number of things I volunteer for without being aware of them. So this morning, first job was a bit of snow clearing and gritting, by which time the big green thing was warmed up and ready to go.
The new units are lower down because um. because the fitters don't like ladders. Or green things.
Bare hands on aluminium ladders, that sucks the warmth from your bones on a minus degrees morning. But I never got the hang of doing stuff with nuts and bolts and wrenches with gloves on.

Ladder and platform? Well, our driver had to go away and do something else, so the ladder was the vital pathway for delivery of hot tea and more cutting blades.

Brrr!

Temperature 17 miles east, last night, -12 deg C, 10.4degF

Temperature last night at Llysdinam, Wales (170miles), 0 deg F, -17.8 deg C.
The North Pole, at the same time, was -14 deg C.