Flushed with pride...

Call me old fashioned, but I kind of expected the toilet to be mended by the (so called) man of the house at the weekend. Although it broke in the middle of last week, I didn’t expect him to come in from work and have to mend it, but I did think he might get the new part for it on Saturday and possibly do the repair on Sunday. I hadn’t investigated what had broken, (in my role as ‘mere woman’!) but as it’s now Tuesday I was starting to get a little pissed off to say the least. The novelty of flushing with a bucket of water had worn off – especially as I was thoughtfully filling the bucket ready for the next person – and stupidly hoping everyone else might do the same.

So, I had a look inside this morning and identified which bit had broken, it was a sort of white plastic thing that is attached to the handle thingy on one end and a sort of bent piece of metal on the thin end, which seems to be attached to the thing that makes it flush. So I found one of those things in the bog-handle shop in Telford and although I thought it was the right thing, I decided to buy a complete handle with all the bits – and I am glad I did, because it had a diagram on it, and it is a nicer one that we had, and it also hangs at a more “normal” angle – it’s been a bit weird since it was mended last time. It took about 5 minutes. I am quite impressed with myself that I have managed to replace it without a man! It was difficult to get the old one off to start with, but that was the most awkward bit. I know it is probably quite an easy job, but at one time I wouldn’t have considered even trying. It was nice to have the tools to do the job (so a big thank you to the person who has bought me my tools over the years – you know who you are!)

Christmas shopping has now started!! I have also made myself a Xmas shopping list on Excel – it’s all colour coded, green for anything I’ve got, yellow for what I need to get (and know what I am getting) and red for things I need to get but don’t know what to get. How sad am I? I have also wrapped and labelled everything I’ve got so far…

The Ollie saga goes on – another trip to the vet. Another bill! Now I’ve got to give him painkillers (ooh fun!) and some liquid food, because he is reluctant to eat. He is looking better though. I was determined not to have any more animals – but we have just had the news that Smitty, Kate’s younger Guinea pig has a really good reason for doubling in size over the last couple of weeks, and have also been able to understand exactly why Galvatron (the older Guinea pig) was so excited to have a new Guinea pig friend! Galvatron was supposed to be female. I gather he’s booked in for the ‘snip’ ASAP!!