TIER 4 CHRISTMAS

Silent night, Covid night,

All the shops shut up tight.

Tier 4 households with turkey to spare,

Poor old biddies with no-one that cares,

Sneezing into your sleeeeeves,

Sneezing into your sleeves.

 

A re-written Christmas carol for these infectious times.  

Tier 4 - Keep Out!

West Sussex has now moved up into Tier 4 - Christmas is not cancelled merely re-booked for summer 2021 when you can fill your face with turkey or mince pies from the comfort of your own lilo.  

Like Bob Cratchit, our Scroogish employers have decided not to give us a pay rise next year claiming destitution which is what we’ll be experiencing once prices start rising, council tax goes up and dishy Rishi clobbers us all with his hefty income tax truncheon.  Believe me, Covid will be the least of your worries from January onwards. 

But in the meantime, lets raise a glass of kindness dear and wish everyone a merry old time in their lockdown ‘baubles’.  Let’s all hope next year will be a better one!

 

Santa water skiing on Chichester canal

Here’s a few photos of Chichester’s Tier 4 town centre looking all glitzy and twinkly at Christmas.

Twinkly trees at the bottom of East Street

This way to Crimbo

View from the market cross down East Street

North Street

Merry Christmas from Chichester

Chichester Cathedral

TROPICAL HEATWAVE

Basking in the sub-tropical splendour of our new heating system. Oooooh it’s so toasty and warm, like a holiday in the Bahamas rather than a grey, drizzly day in West Sussex. I’m positively perspiring with all these double panelled radiators belting out heat rays. It’s wonderful! 

Piping the radiator into a new position in the spare room

After 5 days of upheaval, the new boiler has taken up residence in the garage looking every bit as smart and efficient as it did online. I wanted the completely idiot proof model and Worcester Bosch has certainly come up trumps with its Life 8000 boiler. This one is so straightforward to operate that even Shelby could set the timings. 

Worcester Bosch Life 8000 boiler

Despite my skepticism over the need for electronic gadgetry, I’ve also invested in a NEST thermostat to keep our heating system on the straight and narrow.

Nest thermostat - control your heating from your phone or laptop

This clever little gizmo ‘learns’ your heat requirements then adjusts itself automatically to meet them. Perfect but do you really want a single eyed cyclops ruling the roost when it comes to deciding how warm it should be for an underpants disco in the lounge? Controlling the temperature one day, setting off a nuclear warhead the next. But for now, in AI we trust.

BT BOTHER

What comes first, Christmas or the BT engineer?  Well it certainly isn’t the engineer!

Reading our blog you might assume it’s a domestical Shangri-la over here with every aspect of our home refurbishment project going to plan, coming in on budget and being generally tickety boo.  Take it from me this is far from the reality of things but there’s enough pandemic doom and gloom already about without me adding my own catalogue of woe to the internet.  However, I will say a few words about a couple of them.

Cracks may turn rusty and leak

Very visible chip on panel

Having paid lots of money for quality designer radiators, it’s disappointing to be returning two of them due to chipped enamel or hairline cracks in very visible places.  I can’t stress the importance of closely inspecting purchases soon after delivery.  Leave it too long and you may struggle to get goods exchanged for free or under warranty.  Luckily Best Heating are able to provide replacements before the gas fitter disappears at the end of this week other-wise we’d have no heat or hot water until after Christmas.  Not the end of the world but it’s just one of those minor hassles you can do without when you’re trying to get on with things. 

This week’s Silver Star for Shit Service goes to the telephone engineer who has already failed to turn up for not one, not two but three appointments to move the main BT socket from the corridor into the lounge/diner so that I can set up my home office. 

This dude is obviously the Scarlet Pimpernel of telecommunications as he’s nowhere to be found when expected.  Even more curious is that when I’ve rung and queried his lack of appearance, I’m told that my job has been completed.  I may be getting on in years but I like eating carrots so my eyesight is still good enough to know a phone socket when I see one and I still see one in the same place as it was since the end of November when it should have been moved. 

Like Alan Bennett’s ‘Lady of Letters’ I’ve penned a few succinctly worded epistles to the relevant parties and hope that this international man of mystery turns up today to finally move the socket.

But no, he failed to show up yet again!

HO! HO! HEATING

Twas the week before Christmas when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse and that’s because they were all huddling under the duvet trying to keep warm whilst the new heating system is installed. 

To say it’s parky would be an understatement.  I’ve got fingerless mitts on, thermal socks and a nose that’s almost as red as Rudolph’s from sitting in front of the laptop, immobile like an ancient Sphinx whilst I update this blog.  Even my cuppa’s frozen over!

Out with the old and in with the new

Today has been a chaotic whirl of copper pipe plumbing, woodchip stripping and bannister scraping but now the house has descended into silence.  Gone is the familiar gurgling of water trickling round the rads, gone is the plumber with his over-sized drill bits, gone is the other half for a cheeky hot shower back in Ringwood.  So it’s just little old me in the quiet and cold.  It's that quiet I can hear the old dear next door snoring in front of the telly.  Well okay maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration but I’m sure you get my drift, it’s definitely a silent night. 

Good progress has been made on the heating system.  After 2 days, all the new radiators have been hung in position and copper pipe replaced to most.  I’ve decided to change all the old rads with my favourite designer ones (Milano Aruba double panelled) from Best Heating.  An extravagant gesture but it’s not everyday you get to have a new heating system and I want radiators that chuck out loads of heat as well as look good. 

 

Hallway

Slim vertical radiator in lounge

Vertical radiator for the kitchen

Longer and lower radiator in the diner

Don’t tell Boris but I’m replacing the old boiler with a GAS combi boiler (Worcester 8000 Life) not because I don’t care about emissions or saving the planet but because it is the most economical way to heat a home.  Sorry but I’m not really convinced the new ‘greener’ heat pumps or hydrogen boilers are really going to save the world, they’ll just cost us all an arm and a leg.  I for one don’t want to spend the rest of my days wearing a 10.5 tog cardigan just to keep warm at home because I can’t afford to pay the heating bill.  Climate change is going to happen regardless of hydrogen boilers or not, it’s just the nature of our planet. 

Like the mice, I’m looking forward to snuggling under my goose down duvet with a few emissions of my own to keep warm.

Well she's not sharing my nest