Tooms Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:16:00 +0000

We all go through problems, there are things sent to challenge us everyday. And one of the ways in which we grow and improve and interact is the way in which we face these issues.

It can be anything, and no matter what it is, it will stay with you, one way or another, and hopefully, no matter how bad it is, you should, even in time, obtain some positive outcome from it, and it can help.

And then there are bloody annoying things that make you think you are the most unlucky person in the world.

For those of you that have been keeping track, we are decorating our bedroom. We have plotted and planned and we were all prepared.

We decided to use Hammonds. They were a decent price, they had a sale on (who doesn't !!) and booked it all up for them to attend.

As usual, you have a guy come round the house and try to sell you things. We have an alcove in our bedroom. it seems it is not the "usual" depth. He said their standard wardrobes meant that there would be a 2 inch gap between the edge of the carpet and the wardrobe. BUT it can be rectified for a few hundred quid.

Nope, we will get a piece of carpet, its fine.

So we agree everything, pay the deposit, etc.

Then the surveyor comes. You know, the guy who comes to make sure all the drawings and everything work and it will all fit nicely.

He thinks it is very odd that the designer left the wardrobe finishing just short of the carpet and that wouldn't it look better to have it all flush, its the same price (Hmmmm!!!). So yes, that would be lovely.

And then you have the letters from the company, agreeing it all and all the bumf that comes with it. And then you have to pay a shed load of money to make sure the fitted wardrobe is mostly paid for, and await the date.

We were told it would take about 2 days. My wife's father in law agreed to come and supervise. SO we worked our asses off, painting the ceiling, stripping and re wallpapering, painting the skirting, and moving into our spare bedroom.

Now at least we have a spare bedroom. YAY. However it is quite small, and not enough room for all our stuff from the main bedroom, so the small bedroom also has stuff in it, like a clothes rail. So we are living in our spare room, there are clothes scattered everywhere, but its ok, it will only be 3 weeks.

Hmmmm

The date was fixed for 17 and 18 September. We go to work, the man arrives.

And cocks it up.

Yep. The wardrobe does not fit, it is all cut wrong. And so he needs to stop and start again. He does suggest coming back that weekend, which just so happens to be the wifes birthday. Hmmmm, so can't do that.

But to make us feel better, he tells us that this has never happened to him in 13 years. YAY me, he chose my wardrobe to be the first one to cock up. Joy.

So we phone to re book, and they tell us that it will take a few weeks as they need to re order all the stuff, but they will put a "rush" on it.

SO HOW COULD HE COME BACK SATURDAY ??? Hmmmm

Anyway, we re book. October 10th. Fine. No father in law to help, so I book the day off work (which just so happens to be my last day's holiday by the way !!)

Just another 3 weeks living with clothes and stuff everywhere.

And I am sat here. They are supposed to turn up between 8 and 10. I phoned at 1005. No answer. So I phoned back.

He is not coming. HE IS NOT F***ING COMING.

HE BLOODY FORGOT.

How the heck can you "forget" to go to work ?? What the heck.

They have suggested an alternative date. 23rd October. ANOTHER 2 WEEKS. AND A THURSDAY !!

How the heck do I even know they will bother to turn up that day.

Needless to say, I am less than impressed. I refused the 23rd. I did suggest this weekend. Seems he cannot do that. They are now speaking to managers and will get back to me.

Hmmm

I am tempted to book them in for the 23rd, and not be here. And let them waste a days work.

GITS

Anyway, rant over.

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:31:00 +0000

Howdy

So anyway I have realised how far behind I am on putting up pictures. But I cannot get on to Coppermine. It keeps giving me a really odd error.

Anyway keep posted, as soon as I can put up more pics, they will be there.

x

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:39:00 +0000

Monday- Day 13

Right so I missed Friday because I was away. Rob and I went to see Meatloaf at the NEC. Unfortunately he has a sore throat and so cancelled. Booo

But look how far we have come. The end of Day 13, and once the fitters left we painted. We now have a fully painted ceiling, a nicely newly painted wall, all the walls are tiled and just a bit around the toilet and sink (still in the bedroom) to do, grout and seal.

The shower is up but not working, the electrician is coming Wednesday.

Nearly finished now. Woo hoo !!

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 08:38:00 +0000

Thursday, day 9

Blimey take a look, no sink but the correct one has now been found and is in the spare bedroom. But tiles on the wall, and the wall where it was plastered is dry. Woo hoo

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 08:37:00 +0000

Wednesday - day 8

nothing to report. booo

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 11:39:00 +0000

Tuesday, Day 7

Well wowee have a look the newly plastered wall is almost dry, there is some rather nice boxing in and a new sink and tap have been fitted:

However (dum der dummmmm)

That is the wrong sink. And worse (because it is not actually a horrible sink) it is the wrong tap and does not match the taps on the bath. EEEK

Wish us luck !!!

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:24:00 +0000

As a little change from bathrooms, I went to ASDA this morning. We ran out of milk, which is never a good thing when you have people in doing works, so I ran over to ASDA.

I forgot that it being a Monday it does not open until 8am. I was there about 5 minutes early and was surprised to find about 20 other people waiting.

But what I did not expect was the fact that at 8am, there were people grumbling about the fact that ASDA was not yet open. One worker was outside and I felt a bit sorry for him, because as he was asking to be let in one woman was actually getting rather grumpy saying she wanted to be allowed in as it was now 8:05 (I made it 8:02 at the most)

Anyway I was very shocked, and thought I would share. Have you ever been subject to supermarket rage ??

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:20:00 +0000

Monday - day 6

Wowee. There is a new toilet. And it looks squiffy. Wait thats not the right word. It looks great. AND if you look closely you will see that the wall is also plastered.

There are also new tiles for the bathroom in the garage, and the few drips that we had have also been cured. And we have new pipes too leading to where the sink will go.

It is all starting to look a bit special. Take a peek:

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:13:00 +0000

Friday (day 5)

Well the bathroom is in and hooked up and usable (which is great as I am fed up washing from a bucket)

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 07:22:00 +0000

Right then, day 4 (Thursday) and here is how it is looking:

The ceiling has now been plastered, the bath is in place (but not hooked up yet) and the radiator is off and the pipes are ready for the towel rail.

So next is hooking up the bath and then I think it will start to move quickly - YAY

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:57:00 +0000

OK so after day three, all of the wallpaper is now down (it was horrible vinyl rubbery stuff that the pics just don't do justice to), the ceiling has been boarded ready to be plastered, the floor is all up and the sink has also been taken out.

We have a skip on the drive with the old bath and sink in it.

However the plumbing seems to be in place for the new shower (WOO WOO) and the new bath (which is in the garage) should be in tomorrow, not fixed but so we can at least have a bath (still washing with the pink bucket)

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:29:00 +0000

OK well almost as promised here is the bathroom after day 2. The sink does not work, it having been unhooked.

The new "bath" is a pink heart shaped bucket. Niiiiice

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 21:28:00 +0000

Right then so we are getting our bathroom done this weekend, and as I know there are a million viewers of this blog I figured I would do a bathroom watch.

SO here is how the bathroom was before the work started:

And this is how it was at the end of the day:

stay tuned for tomorrow....

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:32:00 +0000

1st March

Well then, I figured I would do a quick update so you know what is happening. All of cyberspace is reading right now, hanging on my every word (yeah right !!)

Anyway Monday. We have a house. There is central heating. Our house was built in 1974 ish. I think the central heating is the thing that was put in when the house was first built, so we have been a bit worried about it.

At the beginning of February we went skiing. See my website and the sites of Ian and Sam for the piccies. When we got back we had no heating in the house. It seems an automatic valve had failed. I stuck a paperclip in it which made it work a bit but thats all. However it made us think that we needed to get the central heating sorted out as it must be nearly dead, so we booked in some people to come and give us a new boiler and radiators.

We booked them to start Feb 26th, bright and early. Now we both work but Jenny hung back waiting for them to turn up. No sign of them which was odd. So we called them. Now I know what you are thinking, something always goes wrong, and if you dont believe me see my previous Rants.

Yup.

They had booked it in their diary to start on March 5th. Hmmm. Now that would be so bad but we had turned the house upside down (not literally, that would be daft) to be ready for them arriving. We had emptied everything out of the living room and put it in the dining room, which is a bit small for that stuff. The dining room was now in the conservatory and anyway, the place is a bit of a mess. So we shouted at them, on the phone.

Anyway they agreed to start this week and started Tuesday. We did not see them Tuesday but we got back to the house and there was a note that read:

"We have got the house key and will be back tomorrow. You have no more hot water, only what is left in the hot water tank, and wont have any until we are finished"

Eeeek. So now we have no heating and no new hot water. Not good.

So flashback:

Wednesday

Luke warm very quick shower and shave in the sink.

Thursday

Even quicker not quite as luke warm shower and shave in the sink.

I am hoping they are finished as I am not sure how much water there is eft in our hot water tank and I am not looking forward to a cold shower. It may be that we have to go check into a hotel. If only we had arranged to have an electric shower installed first.

So anyway, I waited around a bit this morning to see if the people would turn up so I could ask them when are they going to be finished ?? No sign. However the builders turned up and ripped out the old fireplace, which was nice. So heres hoping that things are nearly done !!

I will try to keep you posted. Honest !!

In the mean time, work is manic, I won a trial yesterday (YAY), I have another trial to prepare and do Monday (Boo) and although I had a throat infection, I am better now (YAY).

Anyway more later

Dazza

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 08:53:00 +0000

WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Woo hoo. So as you may well know, Nintendo make games and things. You may have played with a Gameboy or something newer.

December, in the UK, Nintendo released the Wii. Silly name ? Yep. Fun ? Yep.

I have got one. I got mine 3 days after release. I ordered it from Amazon. I have found out a number of things from Amazon. One is that they do not get everything right. They said they knew how many they were getting. Someone lied to them. They said because of this I would get my Wii on release day. Unfortunately not to be.

So there were some manic emails and phone calls. I could not speak to ANYONE who had a clue what was happening, so I emailed them, in a bad mood. And it is a rather daft rambling email.

What I shall do is review the email, and if I am not too embarrassed I will post it on here. If I am then you will have to beg and plead with me to email it to you.

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 18:42:00 +0000

Working 9 - 5 ??

Right then well here I am. Again. Working hard. Work is manic at the moment and I finished late at Court so I am trying to catch up (one of the bosses is on holiday next week so things will just get more busy next week)

And it is not going badly. I have caught up with all the work that I had today. If that was all then that would be fine, but I have piles of files with other work to do as well. Oh well. My plan is this:

1. Go to Court and get finished as soon as possible if at all possible
2. Get back to the office and dictate / work on all the files from court so they are up to date
3. Try and get other files worked on.

This seems to be almost working. I will keep you informed (if I remember)

Anyway enough procrastinating by me, it is nearly 7pm (sorry to anyone from Karate who is reading this, I know I am slack, I will try to get to karate next week when I have caught up and I know work should not come first and I need to keep fit etc I know honest) and I should head home for food.

Anyway, not a bad attempt at a blog, I thought they were all supposed to be about random things anyway !!

Two anyway's in a sentence - not good !! Oh well !!

Right then, honestly going home soon.

Thanks

Darren

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 18:17:00 +0000

HELLO

Blimey

Look at me........

Blogging..........

Well eventually anyway.

This is the first. If it is anything like my rants - it will not be that up to date. But hopefully I will try to keep it up to date with what I am doing etc so that you all know because I know how you worry so.

But this is just a quickie (ooer) to get the ball rolling, to see if it all works or see how useless I am at setting up a blog where everything is automated. We shall see.

But hopefully this will be the beginning of something beautiful that will hopefully not get me into much trouble (dispite the fact that i am writing this at work (although it is after work hours so I am safe - ish))

Anyway, make comments, say nice things, compliment my shoes (if you want) and my new hair do - I am having it cut Friday actually thank you for asking that is very kind of you !!!!

And once I get the hang of this and make sure it is all set up, then off we will go. Hopefully it will kick me into sorting out the new website. I have been putting up new photos. I have loads of the stag do yet to do but I will get to that - honest - but there are about a million to choose from. And a new rant, which is written and dying to see the light of day, maybe it will just go down as the Lost Rant, who knows..... We shall see.

Anyway that is all for today, got to go now, more soon.

Darren

noreply@blogger.com (Tooms) — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 14:52:00 +0000

hullo

oh darren is a muppet yes darren is a muppet oh darren is a muppet
cos i can get this to work teeheeeeeeee

bleuuuuugggghhhh!!!!