Crayfish countdown begins

The traps are in the water! It took me ages to find a decent spot, it wasn't deep enough in much of the river. The access to the water was tricky too, most of the ground near to the water wasn't ground at all, it was interlaced reeds, which I found out when I stood on it and started to sink!
I've baited the traps with Felix, prawn flavour cat food! Hopefully no one will steal the traps and when I go check on them tomorrow, we'll have crawdads for tea?
Watch this space......

Doctor Who and the DIY Monster

On Saturday (prior to Mr Fink's DIY binge) we headed off to Hertford Museum to see the Dr Who exhibition. Brilliant. Hertford seems to be a lovely place - needs a bit more exploring but the market seemed good. The exhibition was great, a real tribute to the English eccentric. I love this country! There was a full size replica of the TARDIS, home made, and it looked home made too.

Imagine, the guy that made it usually keeps it in his back garden! Fantastic, only an Englishman would spend hours making something utterly without use then keeping it hidden away where noone could see it! There was a home made K9 and 2 home made daleks (one a professional replica and one made by an 11 year old) plus several collections of Doctor Who memorabilia, ranging from the fanatical to the hysterical.

I would recommend it, the childrens quiz was brilliant and Little Fink really enjoyed it.

It must be Spring, Nr Fink has his decorating head on (remember Worzel Gummidge?) I had to reign him in on Friday, he had already decided he needed to pull up the hardwood flooring in the front room, ready for the new carpet to be laid, prior to the new sofa being delivered. "Hang on a minute, my love," quoth I, "the guy wot selleth the carpet doesn't come till Monday, ar'n't you getting a bit ahead of your self?" He agreed and contented himself with painting 2 of the living room walls, this made the 3rd look mucky so he did that...then the 4th....then the coving...yes, then he ceiling. I really should not complain, I am utterly useless at decorating and just b**ch and moan if I have to do any. Mr Fink has, on one occasion, thrown me out whilst decorating - to be fair, Ched was down at the time and we are murder when we get together! Anyway. he worked like a trooper and the room looks great, really crisp and clean - I am very proud of him. Now all I have to do is find some more stuff to sell on Ebay to pay for it all! I sold our cream leather sofa on Ebay and we decided to resurrect our IKEA 'Poang' chairs from the loft, down came all he bits of leg, back, seating and connecting bits of wood. "A really clever person would have put all the screws in a bag and tied it to a part of the chair." I offered helpfully to Mr Fink whilst he was up the ladder, half in the loft. "Oh look," he said, "the last piece of chair....with a bag tied to it... with all the screws in." Now that NEVER happens!

The Gas Man Cometh - Aug 2007

I wanna tell you a story. If you're sitting comfortably, I'll begin.

One day, in July, our boiler broke down at 'Chez Fink'. It started to make a terrible banging noise and Mr Fink turned it all off and called the plumber - who shall be known as 'Steve'. (Smashing chap).
Steve came round and swtiched the boiler on, it dutifully started banging alarmingly, so much in fact that Steve said, "Bloody Hell, it's not meant to sound like that" and promptly turned it off and told us not to switch it on again.
Mr Fink arranged for Steve to come to 'Chez Fink' while we were on holiday in Devon and replace the radiators and boiler.
Coincidentally during this time the gas board were digging up the path in front of our house (remember this, it's important later).

Steve phoned during the week to report all was going well, apart from our free-range rabbit 'Bunnyfink' biting his trousers as he was coming up the path, and that he should be finished before we got home.

While we were finishing our al fresco breakfast in sunny Devon on the last day of our holiday, Steve phoned to say, "I have some good news and some bad news". It turned out the good news was that all the radiators and boiler had been installed and they had tidied up. The bad news was, the gas board had cut us off. When Steve said, they had cut us off, he really meant it. They had disconnected our house from the gas main, replaced the main and forgotten to reconnect us, they had filled in the hole and tarmac'ed over the top. This meant that the boiler could not be commissioned as it could not be tested.

We arrived home from holiday and admired our spanky new rads and boiler and I started making frantic phone calls to get the gas back on because 'Lance' the Corgi registered guy, was going on holiday in 48 hours - not to be seen for 3 weeks and he was the only one qualified to commission the boiler.
I was put through to customer services, they had all gone home, I tried several different ways to get hold of them - to no avail. In the end, Steve suggested I phone the "Oh my god, I can smell gas" line that is printed on the top of my gas bill. I did and got the following response.

Mrs Fink - I need someone to come out and reconnect my gas
Muppet from gas board - I can send out an engineer to see if it is necessary
Mrs Fink - I know it is necessary, I have no gas and no supply, it has been cut off underground and tarmac'ed over. Nothing, nada, neit, zilch, SIN GAS.
Muppet - OK - to get the ball rolling I need to send the engineer and for him to come, I need you to answer a few STANDARD questions
Mrs Fink (loosing the will to live) Oh if you must but it will be a wasted journey.
Muppet - Question one, Can you smell gas?
Mrs Fink (apoplectic by now) SMELL GAS! SMELL GAS! Oh that I could smell gas, therein lies the crux of my problem, I DONT HAVE ANY BLOODY GAS.
You get the idea.

Anyway, the engineer came out - pronounced that there was no gas (- SURPRISE -) (I asked him why - was it because I had not made enough cups of tea for the gang? He said, "No" probably just an oversight, they probably just forgot) and arranged for the gang to return.

The crew duly arrived the next day, dug up the road and reconnected us. I asked the foreman why we had not been reconnected to the main, was it an oversite and a mistake? He said, "Oh no, it's very complicated er, the main at this point er er...." Yeah right mate, YOU FORGOT.

The upshot is, we now have lovely rads and a new boiler. You'd think the story would end there but no - a week or so later we discovered a problem in the pipe layout (under the floors, left by the previous occupant) which meant that the radiators came on everytime the hot water was on. ARGH - Imagine spare room and bathroom with no carpet, no floorboards etc. Mr Fink came up with the bright idea, "Steve, while you're doing that, can you rip out the bath?... we never use it and the space we will gain... (cue the sound of Mrs Fink sobbing gently into her G&T) But that is another story.

Cub hike

Well, Mr Fink made it back from the 6 mile Cub hike in one peice. 4 hours of walking through farmers fields, woods and such. I dread to think what state the kids are in! They are all sleeping over in the Scout hut tonight - no doubt there will be many feasts during the night and not much sleep! I wonder what 'little Fink' will say about it all tomorrow when we pick her up!
Mr Fink had envisaged putting the skirting back on in the hallway tomorrow - I think getting out of bed should be his major goal for the day!
(Will putting the clocks back help him or hinder?)