What a Week!

First off, my apologies for the silence. We had quite a week. To say the least.

They've been doing work on the Severn Trent (yes, 'Severn Trent' - we were both quite tickled to realize that bit of synchronicity) water line since before I got here. The distance they've travelled with the work in the last month has been quite something. These guys work unbelievably quickly and with very little disruption to traffic. Water pressure has always been an issue in these older homes, so when our hot water began to flow with decreasing pressure, we just put it down to the fact that the workers had reached the area directly across from the house. Then, at the beginning of last week, the hot water became a mere trickle.

"Hmmm," I said to myself, "that's odd. The cold water isn't affected."

So, we emailed the estate agent who suggested that our hot water runs on an immersion tank and maybe we'd accidentally turned it off. Well, there was only one switch near the immersion tank that was off, so I turned it on. We had tons of hot water after that. So much so that on Monday morning, when my sweetie went to take a shower, it was unbearably hot. He turned down the heat on the shower and stuck his hand in to test it. He was scalded. So, he turned on the cold water and stuck his hand in, but that was scalding hot too! I pulled our gelpack out of the freezer, so my sweetie could ice his hand and mitigate the damage, then promptly emailed the estate agent again and suggested that maybe someone needed to be called in. The heating wasn't turning off, although we'd turned the thermostat right down and turned off all the rads, and we now had no cold water.

The plumber came, took one look at the immersion tank and said, "This hasn't been maintained in years. The valve is shot."

The immersion tank was boiling the water and it was boiling over into the cold water pipes. Also, the heating and the hot water were somehow connected, which was screwing up the heating (this explains the MASSIVE gas bill we are expecting). Now, my sweetie had been hearing the most horrible clangs and thuds from the immersion tank since before I arrived. He'd called and said he thought a valve was faulty, but they told him that the rads just needed to be bled. This is one time when being right was no fun. The plumber did what he could to turn the heat down and normalize the hot and cold water, said he'd have to get permission to proceed from the landlady, and he'd move all his jobs around the next day to come fix things properly.

The next day, he and his son appeared, fixed everything, fell in love with Princess Aleksandra, and said that the knobs on the rads are all shot, but he'd need further permission to fix those. In the meantime, the water pressure is awesome, the hot and cold are properly separate and the heating is more even in the house than it has been at any time since my sweetie took posession at the beginning of December. That afternoon, when the estate agent came over to inspect the house (done to make sure we aren't housing six different families here - it does happen a lot, apparently), we filled her in and suggested that our £380 gas bill for December and January might be covered in part by the landlady, since it was her neglect that caused the problem. Not in those words, of course. She was quite chagrined, as her company has a strict policy about things like electrical and heating being working properly on the properties they let. So strict, in fact, that the plumber was stunned at the problems, as he knows the estate agent's rules on this. We also said we love the house and would like to stay beyond our initial six month lease. We'll know about that in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, we bought an estate car last Monday (that's a station wagon). It's a burgundy, 2002 Mercedes diesel that didn't kill my budget because it only cost a few hundred dollars more than I got for my Saturn from that pesky dealer in Toronto! Honest to Pete, used cars are so cheap over here it`s stunning. To be able to buy a Mercedes (even a ten year old one) for the price of a Saturn ... well, it's mind-blowing.

My very happy sweetheart

On Monday morning, after emailing the estate agent about the immersion tank problem, we drove into Leicester and boarded the train to Sutton Parkway, near the used car dealer. Our first train trip in England. What a treat! And talk about 'on time', the doors close on the train 40 seconds before departure, and they mean it. Luckily, we didn't have to find out the hard way. I read it on a sign on the door and dragged my sweetie to our connecting train in Nottingham about a minute before the doors closed.

At Sutton Parkway, we took a taxi to the car dealer. The driver was full of advice about where in Leicestershire we should explore, as he'd lived here at one point. Belvoir Castle was top of his list, except I didn't know where he was talking about at first, as 'Belvoir' is pronounced 'Beaver' here. According to the website, the castle dates back to Norman times and "The English pronunciation 'Beaver' was built up over many centuries through the inability of Anglo-Saxons to master the French tongue."

My sweetie drove the Merc back to Leicester Station, where I got in the BMW and followed him home. I had Sat Nav Nellie activated the entire time, because it was rush hour and the possibilities of us being separated were pretty huge. As it happened, we were separated, but I had the Merc in view so no problem.

I first drove the Merc on Tuesday. Good grief!! This thing is so responsive that all I have to do is think about what I want and she does it! My sweetie said, "You drive much faster in this than you do the Beamer." He was very impressed.

"I don't have a choice," I said. "I barely touch the gas and off she goes!" The Merc is much easier to drive, frankly. The Beamer is like driving a tank. You really have to work at it. My sweetie calls it a driver's car because it has a stiffer suspension and they're closer to racing cars, set up for higher performance. You can 'throw it around'. If you understand these things, you'll know what he means. I don't get it, but then I was happy with my Saturn. The Merc is much more a touring car. Not to mention, there's room in the boot for The Princess, so we don't have to put her in the back seat anymore.

To be continued....

Belvoir Castle