In Repair

Today we have been without electricity and water. Though fortunately not at the same time or place.
After yesterday’s last minute news that the electrician was arriving today, we were up and about early doors to make sure everything was cleared from in front of all the sockets he was going to change. A very pleasant young man, who arrived on time and had been well briefed as to what was required. I made his life a little easier by saying that it was not really worth doing the kitchen sockets at this juncture as we haven’t replaced the tiles yet.
He turned off the power and started work so we left him to it and headed off to Chester. A remarkably trouble free journey, though there were horrendous hold ups further down the M6, due to a big accident that closed both sides of the motorway. Fortunately, we turned off just before the back of the queue.
The plumber turned up on time but was not as well briefed as his sparky counterpart in Kendal. Even though it had been noted last week that the bolts holding on the toilet cistern were very rusty, he had no cutting tools with him. Much grumbling and talk of coming back another day with an angle grinder. I suggested that perhaps we could try some WD40 first. Which did the trick, and the cistern was finally removed. I thought it was just one of the securing screws that was leaking, but it turns out that the screw is just a small part of the seal twixt pan and cistern, which was totally rusted and rotten.
A complete new seal was required and this, in turn necessitated the fitting of a new flush unit. Still, it’s all back together now, it’s working and there are no leaks. At least that job can be ticked off the list. Whilst the plumber was working, I even managed to sort another outstanding issue and reconnected an “orphan” email address to the main account. It was an address that had somehow become detached and we had no idea what the password was! TalkTalk were threatening to delete it unless we did something, and thankfully the links in their email enabled me to firstly reset the password and then today I was able to link it back in to the main account. We don’t really use it any more, but there are some people who won’t - or can’t! - update to the newer address and keep sending us emails. I’m sure it will be deleted eventually, but at least it’ll be at a time of our choosing now.