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the shiny and the flaky
Aug. 2nd, 2009 07:36 pmA rather slothful weekend in London.
PIcked up the 1220x2440mm plywood for the bench boxes, and cut it into 30cm strips, or therabouts, to carry it home. Went with 12mm thick plywood in the end - the 18mm was very, very heavy. If the feet don't survive, we can cut them off, and just have boxes.
Had the plumber in to finish the work left undone from a few weeks ago, so the boiler no longer fires up when the cold water tap is turned, and pipes are secured to the wall as they're meant to be. Still can't get the right mix in the shower.
Spent the lazy afternoon and evening at a backyard BBQ with one of Robert's former coworkers and family, including new baby. They keep several guinea pigs, who mow their lawn for them. They're fine conversation pieces (conversation piggies?). Robert's old employer is still a bit ropey around the edges, apparently.
Sunday morning we hustled to the laundrette; lacking the home machine we spent £11.80 to do three loads, and (fail to) do a load in the spinner. Timed it just right, and beat the rush on the machines, which started about 5 mins after our first load went in.
While the laundry was in, I practiced dance tunes on the tin whistle, much to the annoyance of one of the residents on 2nd floor across the road. 'For love of God, don't you know any other tunes?' she shouted down at me. I was disappointed; she hadn't distinguished that I'd run through four different dances... clearly I need to offer her more exposure to medieval dance tunes.
I was also surprised: she's chosen a flat that's on Broadway Market, opposite a hugely popular pub. Complaining about noise through your open flat window seems a bit rich.
OTOH, it means the whistle carries further than I expected.
For the afternoon we met![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kirieldp and Sebastian at the V&A, to ogle the jewelry exhibit. They'd not been before, so it was all new to enjoy. K is an excellent person to view jewelry with, since she has such a taste for teh shiney.
What I hadn't realised was that V&A has refurbished and opened a whole new area about church glass and silver, and then secular (post-period) silver. There's quite a large area devoted to silver, covering its social history and its manufacturing processes. And we didn't even get into the new ceramics and mosaic areas... so there's more shinies to see to come!
On to the generally oriental-ish buffet down the street, to feed K her periodic dose of spicy food (completely missing from her life in CH). Then to the bookshop (danger danger...) then the pub.
All in all, a rough weekend.
The flaky came in courtesy of the landlady: first telling us she'd be down to visit (Robert says sure, we're in all evening), then calling both of us around 4.50pm - not evening by our standards, how bout yours? - and finding us unreachable, cause we're on the Tube, it not yet being evening, she decides she won't come in to see us, we're rescheduling for Friday (oh really?), because she 'doesn't do evenings'.
Hm; why not say so when we first said, we're in all evening??
Ok, it doesn't sound like a big deal. It's just that every single meeting is like this, will she/won't she/will she/won't she YES whoops no, maybe next month...nope, not visiting, will deal with everything through her sister.
Happily, Robert is available to see her during the day this week, so I'm spared the visit. Even better - he successfully pitched the idea of us ordering a new washer, saving her the trouble - giving us some say in what turns up, compared to our last major appliance purchase which we had no say in, argh. Best of all, since we're buying it, we pay less rent this month. Result: John Lewis promises us a new washer on Thursday.
According to our handy plumber, East London lads solve your white goods removal problem. 'Put the old one out on the corner, it'll be gone the next day'. he said. 'I never pay for taking away boilers anymore, the scroungers will take it for scrap'. Wow.
PIcked up the 1220x2440mm plywood for the bench boxes, and cut it into 30cm strips, or therabouts, to carry it home. Went with 12mm thick plywood in the end - the 18mm was very, very heavy. If the feet don't survive, we can cut them off, and just have boxes.
Had the plumber in to finish the work left undone from a few weeks ago, so the boiler no longer fires up when the cold water tap is turned, and pipes are secured to the wall as they're meant to be. Still can't get the right mix in the shower.
Spent the lazy afternoon and evening at a backyard BBQ with one of Robert's former coworkers and family, including new baby. They keep several guinea pigs, who mow their lawn for them. They're fine conversation pieces (conversation piggies?). Robert's old employer is still a bit ropey around the edges, apparently.
Sunday morning we hustled to the laundrette; lacking the home machine we spent £11.80 to do three loads, and (fail to) do a load in the spinner. Timed it just right, and beat the rush on the machines, which started about 5 mins after our first load went in.
While the laundry was in, I practiced dance tunes on the tin whistle, much to the annoyance of one of the residents on 2nd floor across the road. 'For love of God, don't you know any other tunes?' she shouted down at me. I was disappointed; she hadn't distinguished that I'd run through four different dances... clearly I need to offer her more exposure to medieval dance tunes.
I was also surprised: she's chosen a flat that's on Broadway Market, opposite a hugely popular pub. Complaining about noise through your open flat window seems a bit rich.
OTOH, it means the whistle carries further than I expected.
For the afternoon we met
kirieldp and Sebastian at the V&A, to ogle the jewelry exhibit. They'd not been before, so it was all new to enjoy. K is an excellent person to view jewelry with, since she has such a taste for teh shiney.What I hadn't realised was that V&A has refurbished and opened a whole new area about church glass and silver, and then secular (post-period) silver. There's quite a large area devoted to silver, covering its social history and its manufacturing processes. And we didn't even get into the new ceramics and mosaic areas... so there's more shinies to see to come!
On to the generally oriental-ish buffet down the street, to feed K her periodic dose of spicy food (completely missing from her life in CH). Then to the bookshop (danger danger...) then the pub.
All in all, a rough weekend.
The flaky came in courtesy of the landlady: first telling us she'd be down to visit (Robert says sure, we're in all evening), then calling both of us around 4.50pm - not evening by our standards, how bout yours? - and finding us unreachable, cause we're on the Tube, it not yet being evening, she decides she won't come in to see us, we're rescheduling for Friday (oh really?), because she 'doesn't do evenings'.
Hm; why not say so when we first said, we're in all evening??
Ok, it doesn't sound like a big deal. It's just that every single meeting is like this, will she/won't she/will she/won't she YES whoops no, maybe next month...nope, not visiting, will deal with everything through her sister.
Happily, Robert is available to see her during the day this week, so I'm spared the visit. Even better - he successfully pitched the idea of us ordering a new washer, saving her the trouble - giving us some say in what turns up, compared to our last major appliance purchase which we had no say in, argh. Best of all, since we're buying it, we pay less rent this month. Result: John Lewis promises us a new washer on Thursday.
According to our handy plumber, East London lads solve your white goods removal problem. 'Put the old one out on the corner, it'll be gone the next day'. he said. 'I never pay for taking away boilers anymore, the scroungers will take it for scrap'. Wow.
