The Gas Man Cometh

We're spending a few days in Rochester house sitting while British Gas fit a new boiler for our son and our daughter-in-law. Despite their less than perfect reputation, BG has been pretty good so far; the boiler arrived promptly, the fitter arrived promptly and he got to work pretty sharpish so that within a few hours of being in the property it started to look like our renovation in Framlingham.

I'm glad that our new baby granddaughter isn't around for the few days that this work is going on as there's going to be no hot water until Friday. At least they should all return to a nice warm house; when the gas men finish we aim to give the place a good clean to get rid of any workmen's dust and replace all the  furniture that we had to move so that they could fit the new pipes. One of the best things about retirement is the ability to be on hand to help with this sort of thing.We'll be off back to Scotland when it's all done but it won't be long before another night at Ipswich Premier Inn as we've an appointment with the kitchen designers on 4th October.

We haven't been out into the Kent countryside as much as we planned as yet but we did manage a quick visit to Tunbridge Wells yesterday to check out some furniture for our house in Suffolk. We passed this place in Aylesford once before and this time I was able to take a snap. Ours is a very uncommon surname and I wonder if there's a family connection.

I don't want to sound like Victor Meldrew but I spotted this scene yesterday. Someone has enjoyed their four cans of lager or whatever but couldn't be bothered to walk the two steps to the litter bin to dispose of the empties  - I just don't get it.

One of the luxuries of being here at Paul's is the availability of a broadband connection. After two months in the caravan with wireless for snails I have got out of the habit of Twitter and Facebook but was able to have a chuckle on Monday night when these two cryptic messages appeared in close succession. Both friends are Evertonians and I guessed from the first (the lower one) that they had scored a goal but two minutes later the message was not quite as clear. I checked the scores and sure enough Newcastle had equalised. 

Tomorrow we're going to head to Bluewater (the Trafford Centre of the south) to check out more furniture while gas man Matt does his stuff. We may even get the chance to watch Anna Karenina at the multiplex there. It would be good to get to the pictures as we've only seen three or four films since we moved and were getting used to at least one a week in Southport.