Roman about & showering

It was back in November I told you that I'd checked out the packaging with our Roman blinds so I didn't get caught out putting them up and finding myself without some essential fixing.

Not wanting to rush into things (*koff*) I finally got round to putting them up this afternoon. You have to larf. What I thought was fixings peeking out at me from the cute little plastic bag was only that capstan thingy you wind the cords round to hold the blinds in one position. I still needed something to hang the buggers from. Sheesh.

Fortunately I inherited from my dear ol' Dad an extensive collection of screws. It didn't take much furtling around in the collection to find the five I needed, and up they went. Not that it's drafty in the bathroom since the windows were seen to; it just looks a little more "finished" now. It also makes using the bath a tad more private, which is important at the moment with the shower out of action.

Oh the leak's been fixed, but the temperature fault is still with us. I called the manufacturers and they decided the most likely explanation was that the shower simply needed recalibrating. I didn't argue. It's one of those situations where you have to follow their programmed fault-finding list before they'll send someone out. Recalibrating is an overblown term for adjusting the point at which the stop-button (anti-scalding device) activates, but since the shower never gets above cold I knew from the off this would not solve the problem. Sure enough with the temperature control knob pulled out so the stop-button could be bypassed, turning the knob fully in either direction did not change the temperature one jot. The only way I knew hot water was reaching the shower at all was that if I ran the hot tap in the wash basin the shower changed from cold to "flippin' freezing." That, and the fact that the chromed pipes coming through the wall were frosted with condensation on the cold side and hot to the touch on the other side. Like I said, it's the coil. I'll be calling them back tomorrow.

It could be a season for curtaining - I had a voice message from Housing Units on Thursday afternoon to tell me the curtain poles for the study had arrived. Something else for tomorrow: picking them up on my way home from the office. Fitting them will no doubt be next weekend's job. Luxury.