At home

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?

 

 

Family Reunion

/ masher / 7 Comments

My wfe and daughter returned from their holiday last night.

This means that, once again, I have to get used to sleeping with someone who steals the duvet, grinds her teeth and snores like an asthmatic bear.

It means that, whilst the daily energy energy bill has remained quite low for the past two weeks, the digits on my smartmeter display will now start ticking over like those on a pinball machine, again.

It means that the backs of the chairs and sofas will again disappear, becoming hanging space for various tops and hoodies and the like.

It means that the bathroom – which has been pristine for the past fortnight – will now be overloaded with bottles of shampoos and conditioners and lotions and creams and hairbrushes full of hair… and I give it two days before the plugholes get clogged up.

And, with females back in the house, toilet roll consumption will now go back from one a fortnight to one a day.

You know what… I wouldn’t have it any other way.

G-Force

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For years, my daughter has wanted to keep guinea pigs, but I’ve always said no.

As she wouldn’t keep them outside – “It’s too cold for them out there. They’ll DIE!” – and we didn’t have room indoors, I put my foot down and said no way.

And then, one day, I came home from work to find that she had acquired (with a little help and agreement from her mum, it turns out) two of the damn things, along with a cage to keep them in… a cage the size of a small car. It just about fits in her bedroom.

One of the tasks given me whilst she is on holiday with her mum, is to keep the pigs alive.

I’ve managed that… so far.

Before she left, I did ask – just out of interest – where I could buy two guinea pigs that looked exactly like hers.  Just out of interest.  She didn’t like that joke.  At all.

But, they’re not dead yet, so I’ve just got to keep them going until she returns at the end of the week.

Yesterday, I thought I should clean out the cage, because they’ve had a week of pissing and shitting in there, so it must be rank.

I pulled on some rubber gloves, lifted the little blighters out and put them in a box and got to work.

I was right: rank.

But, they now have clean bedding and the old stuff has been washed and aired.

Took me about an hour to clean it all out and replace the bedding. Pain in the arse job that made my back ache.

Gimme a dog, any day.

Sleeping Beauty

/ masher / 4 Comments

As mentioned in an earlier post, I have to get up at 5am each morning, so that I can take my daughter to work.

But, she is currently away on holiday with Mrs. M, and so that means I get a lay-in. Yay!

I have set the alarm for 6am, so that I can have an extra hour in bed.

But, so far, it hasn’t happened. My internal body clock keeps rousing me at around 5am.

And once I’m awake, I generally have to get up. I can’t just lay there.

Which is fine. I’m very much a morning person, so once I’m up I’m quite happy.

However, this morning, I was really tired, thanks to someone’s bastard car alarm that had me up at 3am so, when I automatically woke up and saw on the bedside clock that it was only ten-past five, I groaned and rolled over, to go back to sleep.

The dog was having none of that though.  She’d heard my slight groan and bounded up the stairs, into the bedroom to make sure I got up. She often does this.

Her technique, is to sit by the bed and stare intently at me. I can feel her telepathic doggy thoughts burrowing into my brain: “Get up! Take me for a walk.”

If that doesn’t work (which it normally does, to be fair), then we get the paw clawing on the bed, which makes a rasping sound as she drags it across the duvet.

Her final trick is a pathetic whimper, as if she desperately needs me to get up and let her out for a wee, but once I get up, she’s happy and goes back downstairs and lays on her bed. Stupid dog.

One extra hour in bed… for a couple of weeks!

It’s not much to ask for.

Network

/ masher / 6 Comments

“There’s nothing on the telly.”

We’ve all said it.

Of course, that’s not true: we have a veritable smorgasbord of shows to choose from.

We have about 200 channels to pick from nowadays and, on top of that, a whole collective noun of streaming services to play with.

But, as we all know, the vast majority of what is available, is total tripe.

Cookery shows! There are so many cookery shows! Why? Probably because they are cheap to make.

People moving house! Why do we want to watch people looking for a new house in the country – or in another country?   So what?  They’re moving house.  Good luck to them.  But do we really want to watch them do it?  I certainly don’t.

Young, fit, good-looking people, living together on a boat / island / mansion house.  Programmes claiming to be about relationships and social dynamics, when really it’s just about catching them on camera having sex together or fighting with each other.

Gogglebox. What the fuck is that about?  I know it’s been a huge success, but do people really sit and watch other people watching telly?  They do realise that these people are playing up to the camera, don’t they?  When we watch telly in my house, no-one talks, otherwise we miss bits of the dialogue… which is bloody annoying.

But, of course, there is some good stuff on there too.

I’m currently enjoying Shameless and Motherland on Netflix.  I watched all eleven series of Shameless, last year and I am now watching the US version, which I’m enjoying just as much, if not more.  Motherland is a little gem that passed me by when it was on C4. I never paid it much attention, to be honest. But, when I found out it was co-written by Sharon Horgan and Graham Linehan, I just had to give it a go. So glad I did.

On C4 I am watching SAS Who Dares Wins, the show which puts contestants through the rigours of Special Forces selection training. I love it when these contestants give their little VTs to camera: “I’m pretty tough-minded and I’m not the sort who gives in easily”, and then you see them at the end of episode two, slumped against a rock and sobbing whilst handing their armband back.

And on Disney+ I am currently rather taken with Agent Carter, the Marvel spin-off from the Captain America films, along with War Of The Worlds, which was recommended to me by Mrs. Jones. I’m only a couple of episodes in, but so far I’m quite enjoying this different take on H. G. Wells’ classic.

So, what about you… watching anything good?

Home Alone

/ masher / 6 Comments

The current Mrs. Masher has buggered off to Dubai for a holiday.

She has taken our daughter with her, leaving me to fend for myself, our son, the dog and two guinea pigs for the next couple of weeks.

It’ll be fine.

I’ve been instructed on which two settings to select, from the thousand or so that are available on the washing machine.

And I’ve been told which family members have birthdays this month and will therefore require an over-priced piece of card to be sent to them.

I’ve also been told to make sure we eat properly.

Not a problem.

I’l admit that cooking isn’t something I enjoy doing and it certainly isn’t a forté of mine but, I know the basics.

I can remove cardboard sleeves and pierce film lids with little or no problem.

In fact, I already have all the dinners planned for the forthcoming week:

Friday – Fish and chips – 5 mins up the road

Saturday – Pizza – 12 mins in the oven

Sunday – Toby Carvery – 25 mins up the road

Monday – Sainsbury’s Lasagne – 50 mins in the oven

Tuesday – McDonalds – 5 mins up the road

Wednesday – Pasta and meatballs – 15 mins on the hob

Thursday – Jumbo burger and chips at our local pub, ten mins walk away

And repeat.

I’ve ordered Bear Grylls’ Survival Handbook from Amazon, just in case, but you know what, I think we’ll be alright.

The Town

/ masher / 8 Comments

I saw this article in the Daily Mail sidebar of shame yesterday (I wasn’t looking through it on purpose, you understand… my mouse slipped).

It  quite annoyed me.

Firstly, because it is old news.  Heard it all before.

Secondly, it’s rubbish.

Yes, the town has it’s problems, but in that respect, it’s no different to other towns of a similar size and population demographic.

During my contracting years, I worked and stayed in many, many towns around the country and I can tell you that plenty of them were much nicer than Luton.

But also, plenty of them weren’t.

It’s always very easy to shout about a town’s failings. Of course, Luton has its rundown areas of poverty and high crime rates – the same as most places, but then it also has its good areas.   I live on the edge of town and crime round here is pretty low, I’m pleased to say. It’s a nice enough area. There are houses just a couple of minutes up the road that cost upward of half a million pounds.

We have good road and rail connections – three motorway junctions and three railway stations.

We have an airport.

And a (somewhat dated) shopping mall.

There are plenty of green spaces, too.

So yes, we can complain about the negative aspects of where we live, but let’s acknowledge the positives, too.

The Way Of Water

/ masher / 4 Comments

I received an email from my water supplier, last week.

“We recently read your water meter and your next bill is on its way, but we wanted to let you know in advance that the meter reading is significantly higher than expected.” it said.

Well, there’s something to look forward to, then.

But, why should it be so much higher than usual?

I went outside and checked my meter, knowing that there was no water usage in the house at the time.

Sure enough, the indicator was slowly turning, telling me that water was indeed flowing… albeit, slowly.

Up in the loft, I checked the tank. Before I even got to it, I could hear the trickling sound of water, indicating that the tank was still slowly filling up.

The ball valve seemed to be working, but was a little stiff and reluctant to completely shut off the water to the inlet.

So, yesterday, I fought my way through the usual endless traffic that always heads toward B&Q on a bright, sunny Sunday and I bought a new one – not from the aforementioned superstore, but from a little plumbing shop half a mile down the road from them: no queueing; easy parking; knowledgeable staff; they always have want I want and they are just as cheap or cheaper.

An hour later, it was fitted and now shuts off properly. And when I check the meter outside, there is no movement.

I don’t, for one minute, believe the dripping valve was the cause of my impending huge bill because all the water was contained within the tank but, once I’d found that it was dripping, I needed to fix it, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night.

I await my water bill with interest… and impending gloom.