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Alarmingly Different

/ masher / 4 Comments

Whenever I have had to get up for an early start, I have always taken care not to wake The Current Mrs Masher™ – she’s not at her best, first thing, and being woken before it’s actually time to get up, adds a whole extra level of misery to her morning.  And if she’s miserable then…

When I was a call-out engineer, I would sometimes get up at  2 or 3 in the morning to attend an outage. I would quietly dress and leave the house, returning a couple of hours later and slipping back into bed.  When Mrs M got up at 7, she would be completely unaware that I had even been anywhere and would often ask if I’d had a good night’s sleep!

And even now, if I have to get up early, I wash and clean my teeth in the dark, so that the light from the bathroom doesn’t wake her and I’ll gather up my clothes and get dressed in the spare bedroom, so that the noise of me dressing doesn’t rouse her from her slumber.

However, it’s very different when the roles are reversed.  Sometimes, Mrs M has to get up early for work.  The alarm clock will go off at 04:30 and will then be snoozed. It will then go off again 8 mins later, when it will be snoozed again.  I’ll kick her out of bed when it goes off for the third time. She then goes in the bathroom and bright white light will flood into the bedroom, forcing me to hide beneath the covers.  Then the bedroom light will go on whilst she rummages vociferously through her wardrobe, coathangers clattering loudly on the rail as she tries to figure out which one of her twenty or so tops goes best with the black trousers she plans on wearing.  Drawers will be noisily opened and closed as various undergarments are selected and then she’ll sit on the side of the bed and start drying her mop with the hairdryer.

After fifteen minutes listening to this racket, I am wide awake, which is when she then comes round to my side of the bed and whispers (yes, WHISPERS!) that she’s off to work now.

Jeez.

The Dog That Cries Wolf

/ masher / 8 Comments

Saber – our 8 year-old German Shepherd dog – has always had incredible hearing and still has so today.

She can hear someone walking past the house.

She can hear someone walking past the house with a dog.

She can hear a cat or a fox in the back garden.

She can hear the postman pull his van into the next road.

She can hear someone trying to break into our garage.

Problem is, all these noises that she hears, causes her to go on a barking rampage. “WUH WUH WUH WUH WUH WUH WOOF!”

And, because she does it all the time, we tend to ignore her or shout at her to shut up. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have gone to the front door because she is standing there barking her head off, only to see someone who’d had the audacity to walk past our house and is now sauntering off into the distance.
“WUH WUH WUH WUH WUH WUH WOOF!”

Which is why when someone tried to break into our garage some years ago, in the middle of the night, I told her to shut up.
“WUH WUH WUH WUH WUH WUH WOOF!”

“SABER! SHUT THE FUCK UP, WILL YA!”

Finding the damage to the garage door the following morning, made me resolve not to ignore her again.

But we do. Because she does it all the time.

This morning at 04:30: “WUH WUH WUH WUH WUH WUH WOOF!”

I dragged myself out of bed and looked out of the bedroom window. Nothing.  I went to the back bedroom and looked out into the garden. And there I saw it: a cat.

A cat, just slowly and silently walking along the top of the garden fence, minding his own business and causing no harm.

“WUH WUH WUH WUH WUH WUH WOOF!”

The downstairs blinds are closed, so she can’t even see the cat.  How does she even know it’s there?

I know German Shepherds are very loyal and very protective, but even so…

Anyway, I suppose we feel a bit safer, knowing that should the postman try to burgle us in the middle of the night, we’ll know all about it, even if he parks in the next road… assuming I can be arsed to get up and look out of the window.

Frugality Seems To Be The Hardest Word

/ masher / 7 Comments

It’s oft said, that two can live as cheaply as one, and I’m sure that has a ring of truth to it.

But only where Two and One share a common view on saving money, surely?  And is that common view prevalent amongst most couples?  I don’t really know, but, let’s take a look at Masher Towers – as an example – to see if this phrase applies there.

One is often trying to save water. Not just because of the cost, but also because One has worked in the water industry and understands what a precious and finite resource it actually is.  Limiting showers to 4 minutes and turning the tap off during teeth brushing are 2 well known water-saving devices that One employs on a daily basis.  Two, on the other hand, doesn’t give a toss about such things and likes to luxuriate in a bath full of hot water, several times a week.

Two is a cold morsel, who will sit on the sofa, wearing a fleece and a dressing gown, shivering and complaining about how ‘bloody freezing’ they are, whilst One sits next to them, sweating in a T-shirt because the central heating has had to be cranked up yet another couple of degrees.

One does the grocery shopping, because, when Two does it, the fridge ends up stuffed to the gills with more food than One and Two can actually eat in 7 days, and so, much of it goes in the bin at the end of the week… much to One’s annoyance.

So, it seems, in this household at least, Two cannot live as cheaply as One.

Not even close.

Draining

/ masher / 4 Comments

In the road outside our house, is a drain.  Nothing exciting there, I know.

About ten years ago, some pikeys nicked it. Well, they nicked the grate. It was a good solid grate and probably worth a fair bit of money down at the dodgy scrap metal merchants.

I returned from work, that evening, to find a hole in front of the drive.

I reported it to the council and they said that there had been a spate of them in the area, but that they would fix it as soon as they were able.  Sure enough, within a couple of days, I returned home to find a nice new drain grate had been fitted.

I was a little disappointed though. This grate wasn’t as hefty as the previous one and it hadn’t been fitted flush to the road surface. It was about an inch below. And they hadn’t made a particularly good job of concreting it in. All in all, it was a bit shoddy.

Due to the drain’s location, when driving on and off my drive it’s pretty impossible not to drive the wheels over the drain and, now that there was a bit of a drop, it meant that the weight of the car dropping on top of it just pushed the drain down further and further through the shoddy concrete, until it was a good few inches down.

Consequently, the drain has never been cleaned out by that big tanker thing that comes up the road with a giant hoover attachment, because they have never been able to get it open, jammed into the concrete as it is.

I’m sure they must have reported it back to the council and I myself have reported it several times, but nothing ever happens. Sometimes, someone comes out and looks at it, sprays some orange paint around it and then buggers off.  The paint eventually fades away and the following year someone comes out and paints around it again.

Well, it was a lovely bright day, yesterday, and so I cleaned the car. When I went to pour the dirty bucket of water down the drain, I noticed that there was barely any drain visible, as the grate was completely clogged up with leaves and detritus. I got a mahoosive screwdriver and a hefty brush and I spent ten minutes cleaning everything away. I was quite pleased with my handiwork, as it looked so much better with all the crud removed and it also meant that if it rained, water could actually flow into the drain, as it was supposed to. It was now functional again.

And then, this morning, two flat-bed trucks sporting orange flashing lights pulled up outside the house and four blokes got out, dug up the road and replaced the drain.

If I’d known that to get it replaced all I had to do was clean the bloody thing, I’d have done so years ago!

Feb The Wunth

/ masher / 6 Comments

I was awoken at 4am this morning, by the current Mrs M climbing back into the marital bed.

I asked where she had been and she explained that she couldn’t sleep and so had been downstairs catching up on the last several episodes of Silent Witness.

“Sorry that I woke you”, she said.

“Wo’evverrr”, I muttered, sleepily.

“But, as you’re awake… Pinch Punch, First Of The Month!” she said, gleefully jabbing me in the arm.

“Not fair! I exclaimed. “I’m not properly awake yet.”

Pinchy Punchy is something we have done for years and it has become quite competitive between the two of us and has reached the point we we even employ dirty tricks like pretending to be asleep – you can’t be pinchy punched when you’re comatose… it’s one of the rules.

We haven’t kept count, but there’s no doubt that Mrs Masher is well ahead.

Sneaky cow.

Anyway, as I have been reminded twice now, it is indeed the first day of February, which can mean only one thing: the entire internet goes into meltdown, as two of us  – I am assuming (nay, hoping) the other one will be joining in – tackle this year’s Masher’s Blog-A-Thon.

Drivel, nonsense, twaddle, gibberish and tripe will be spoon-fed to you both on a daily basis, all washed down with a big glass of poppycock (yes, I’ve been at the thesaurus again).

Brace yourselves.

… It Is Now

/ masher / 4 Comments

Well, it got to 11:30 and I was ready for bed, but Mrs M had other ideas and wanted to watch the fireworks on telly, so I poured myself a scotch and we sat down and watched hundreds of thousands of pounds go up in smoke.
Literally.

It was pretty spectacular though.

We then wished each other a Happy New Year, shook hands and hit the sack.  Despite the cacophony of whizzes and bangs that were going on outside, I think I was fast asleep within 2 minutes.

Reading the news this morning, I was somewhat miffed to see that once again I have been overlooked in the New Year Honours List.   Oh well, maybe next year.

OK, 2025, let’s see what you’ve got.

They Think It’s All Over…

/ masher / 5 Comments

Nearly there!

Christmas has been a quiet one for the Masher household this year: revolving mainly around food, drink and flopping in front of the telly for hours on end.

I have eaten my own body weight in sausage rolls, mince pies and Quality Street and our previously well stocked beer fridge now just has small balls of tumbleweed rolling around inside it.

The garage is piled high with polystyrene and cardboard and sacks of wrapping paper, just waiting for me to pluck up the will to take it all to the local Tidy Tip. That’s not gonna happen this week, I can tell you!

But some semblance of normality has resumed, in that the Christmas tree has been taken down and stashed back up in the loft and all the Christmas cards (we seem to get fewer every year) have been taken down and put in the recycle bin.  Now that the tree is gone, furniture has been placed back into its usual place and the living room now looks as it did… should.  Annoyingly, the Blu-Tak that we used to stick up the cards, has marked the wall and our chimney breast now looks like it has the measles. I’ll have to repaint it.

There may – or may not – be more festivities tonight.

But personally, I’ll be most upset if I’m not tucked up in bed by 11:30

Super Mashero

/ masher / 4 Comments

There was a strange noise coming from upstairs: a hum that sounded like the shower pump, except that it kept going on and off.

Mrs M and I looked at each other, quizzically. I paused the film we were watching on telly and headed up the stairs. Just as I got to the top, Son walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. “Shower’s broken”, he said nonchalently, as he went into his bedroom and closed the door behind him

I went into the bathroom and pressed the shower button. It whirred into life with a loud hum but was silenced after just a few seconds as the pump shut down due to no water coming out.

I checked the pump – located in the airing cupboard. It looked OK: no signs of leaks or anything, so I rebooted it (I turned the power off and back on again).  It was still the same.  I did a diagnostic check on it, using the app on my phone, but it said that the shower was in full working order.

Then I turned on the taps. Water flowed from the cold, but nothing came out of the hot.  This had me puzzled and I spent ages checking around the hot water cylinder, but again, everything looked OK.

Flummoxed, I turned the taps on again and watched as the cold water flowed out, but then started to slow and quickly stop.

“Aha!”

I got the stepladder out, climbed into the loft and looked in the water tank.

It was empty, save for a puddle of lime scaled water at the bottom.  The red ball float hung forlornly in the air, when it should have been floating atop two cubic metres of water.  I wiggled it it up and down, but nothing happened. I checked the header tank and that was fine, so the ball valve in the main water tank was obviously knackered.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. I’ve probably replaced that float valve three times in the past five years.

“Can you fix it?”, Mrs M shouted up, a slight note of panic in her voice. “I’ve got that big meeting in the office tomorrow, so I’ll need to shower and wash my hair.”

“I’ll see what I can do”, I said reassuringly.

I looked at the ball valve carefully.  The plunger felt stiff and pretty much immovable. I was unable to get at the innards as the cap was sealed tight with limescale and wouldn’t budge, even using my biggest pipe wrench.

It was 9pm on a Sunday night, what was I going to do?   And why do these things always go wrong at the most awkward times?

And then I had a moment of inspiration (or was it desperation?)

I hit it.  I got my biggest spanner and I hit the valve. Hard.

Water started to dribble from the outlet. I hit it again and the water flowed out quicker and before long, the tank was full again.

I went to the Plumbing Merchants this morning and bought a new valve.

I should have bought a spare.

 

Alarming Progress

/ masher / 8 Comments

A couple of years ago, I decided I should get an alarm for the garage.  It’s always had one, but it’s not particularly good and now that I have en expensive motorcycle and a not-so-expensive motorcycle and several hundred pounds worth of power tools, I thought maybe it was time to upgrade.

However, I wanted the alarm to have several additional features that are just not available on commercial alarm systems, and so I decided to build my own.

As I say, it’s been a couple of years now since I started this project and it is still sitting on the bench. That’s it in the photo.

Unfortunately, it’s been one of those projects that has gone on and off my back burner quite a lot, and the main reason for that has been the programming side of things – I’m rubbish at it.

It’s also one of those projects that has suffered extensive scope creep… everytime I think I’ve reached a point where I’m happy with it, I find myself thinking “Hmmm… it would be good if it did so and so, as well”, and it then spends another few weeks on the bench while I fail miserably to get the amended programming to work and then lose interest in it.

The most recent example of this is where I decided that the alarm sounder side of things should be changed.  The siren is incredibly loud and the flashing lights are very bright and (trying to imagine every scenario), I thought the neighbours probably wouldn’t appreciate that going on for twenty minutes in the middle of the night, if we were away.  I came up with a solution, but again, my programming skills let me down and so the project headed for it’s home on the back burner. Again.

A chap I was talking to on the radio turned out to be very good at this sort of thing and offered to help, and so one evening last week, over Google Meet, I shared my code with him.  It took him about ten minutes to figure it out – I was doing the right thing, but I was putting the code in the wrong place… damn nested If Then loops!

And so, it is now definitely finished (probably).  I just need tofinish building it, stick it in a box and fit it in the garage.

And then my garage will be protected by an alarm that:

  • Has multiple and adjustable length keypad entry codes
  • Different entry times depending on which entrance is used to access the garage
  • Single button-press alarm setting
  • Auto alarm arming (should you forget to set it when leaving the garage it will arm itself, providing a set of criteria have been met)
  • An incredibly loud siren that sounds in conjuction with some flashing floodlights inside the garage, but which turns off after a set period of time, leaving the floodlights flashing until the whole system resets itself after another set period.
  • A set of floodlights that flash as per above, but can also be switched on and off manually by the keypad when the system is unarmed, to provide a good working light when tinkering with motorbikes, etc.
  • Control of the normal garage lights – ie, the lights come on when the door is opened and go off again when the door is closed and the system is armed (either manually or automatically)
  • Battery backup if the mains supply fails.

So now I need to crack on and get it built (in truth, a lot of it is already done).

But it’s carrently on that back burner again, whilst I think of shit to write in this here blog.

For Sale: One Back Burner – Heavily Used

/ masher / 7 Comments

As you both know, I have several hobbies that take up much of my spare time.

The most prolific of these is electronics, which I have been playing around with since I was 14.

Over the years, I have built many projects, most of which have ended up being dismantled or discarded once I’d lost interest in them, but also some that are still in use regularly to this day.

Nowadays though, it takes me longer to build things, because I simply don’t seem to have as much spare time as I used to.  And, I’ll often find, that halfway through building a project, something else will grab my attention. Project A will then go on the back-burner whilst I start on Project B.

I am in that situation right now: Project A – a large project that I have been working on for a couple of years (it started life as my Lockdown Project, back when we had the plague) has spent more time on the back burner than on the front. And it is sitting there right now, gently simmering whilst I work on Project B.  Occasionally, I will come back to it and give it a bit of a stir, but for the moment, all my time and energy is focussed on completing Project B.

Or, at least, it was. Because the components for Project C arrived in the post yesterday and I am quite excited and keen to get started on that one.  Of course, I should put it to one side and wait until I have finished Projects A & B, but I know that won’t happen… Project B will be squeezed onto the back burner, alongside Project A, whilst I put all my focus into Project C.

Having a back burner really isn’t helping.

 

What’s in a name?

/ masher / 4 Comments

My son is doing an appreticeship as a vehicle mechanic (my dreams of him joining the RAF didn’t pan out, unfortunately). Friday evening, he was regaling us with a tale of something that had happened that day at work: “… and so my mentor was under the truck and he said to me ‘ Oi, Wankstain, pass me a 32mm socket willya’, and so I went over to his toolbox and…”

“Hold on”, said Mrs Masher, “What’s that he said?”

“Pass him a 32mm socket”

“No, before that. What did he call you?”

“Wankstain”

“Mrs. M wrinkled her nose up and gave that indignant look that tells us all that she isn’t happy about something. “Well, that’s not very nice!” she said.

“It’s just a nickname”, said Son. “Everybody there has nicknames and, being the lowest of the low – an apprentice – I get all the horrible ones.  Last week I was ‘Shit-for-brains’ most of the week. It’s just banter. Doesn’t bother me.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s very nice. Do you want me to come down there and say something?”, said Mrs. M, not really grasping the social dynamics that reside within an all-male workforce.

“Errr… I’d rather you didn’t”,  he said..

But this got me thinking.  Most every place I’ve worked, people have had nicknames… especially when I was in the GPO / BT.  I got away quite lightly with it: my nickname being a bastardisation of my own name… as it was for many others. We had an Abbo, a Clippy, a Pedro, a Bazzer, a Smithy, etc. Others got handed names like Spud and Biffo and Walrus, for various reasons.  And yes, the lower ranking guys – the trainees and apprentices – were often saddled with more derogatory names. I can’t remember them all, but I do remember we had a Slug-guts and a Shit-legs.

Although some of these names weren’t particularly nice, there was never any malice attached. Well, rarely.  It was – as Son pointed out – just male banter.  I’m sure that if he had joined the RAF, he would also have been given a nickname of sorts.

But, I’m pleased to see that the woke brigade haven’t yet managed to infiltrate every British institution – the humble car mechanic’s garage may well be the last bastion for men to be able to talk like men.

Which makes me think (Again! That’s twice today!).  When I was much (much) younger, I worked for a short while in a factory, where most of the workforce were women. I don’t remember any of them having nicknames. Do women give each other nicknames at work or is that a male thing?