Avatar The best home owner job

We talk a lot about what it’s like owning a house. Kev has been renovating and expanding his vast property empire for many years now, of course, while I have been steadily improving our premises with the aid of a toolbox large enough to use as a double garage. Now that Ian has joined the home owner club we have been doing our best to gently and constructively guide him in his new duties.

But I sometimes think that all too often we discuss the downsides: the amount of maintenance work, the unexpected costs, the speed with which nature will reclaim your carefully tended garden as wilderness. So I thought it might be nice to talk about the good bits of owning a house, because some of the things an Englishman has to do to look after his castle are actually very satisfying.

I will open the bidding with pressure washing.

Pressure washing is brilliant.

I love my pressure washer, but for whatever reason I hadn’t taken it out for a spin for about 18 months. Then, the other day, we’d had a drain unblocked and the drainage gully running through the paving down the side of the house needed clearing of all the crap that had built up, so I got the Kärcher out of the garage and fired it up. And once it was out, that was me set for the afternoon. Everything got jet washed.

The best part was discovering that the paving stones around the front and side of the house actually have a colour, as pictured above. I spent a very happy hour effectively colouring them in.

Avatar Ian’s holiday snaps – #1

The best part of being on holiday is taking photos of things that people have zero interest in and then forcing them to look at them once you get home. It’s a legitimate way of being annoying because they instinctively want to know about your time away and you can show them through 10,000 photos of a camel.

Not that I’m on holiday with a camel. Far from it, me ‘n’ the V have been sunning it in Florida for almost two weeks. We’ve done a lot of walking, I’ve drank dozens of watered down sodas and eaten my way through many burgers, tasty barbecue ribs and steaks.

I thought it best to ease you into the holiday snaps with a couple of posts, tossed off in my quieter moments, showing all the excitement of Orlando.

First up is this one. This is a fantastic photo of me emerging from the 7/11 with my Frosty blue ice thing. It was a hot day and I needed some cool refreshment. To my delight, this only cost a dollar for some reason (it was advertised as costing more) so I had to capitalise on the moment. I was on my way to pick up lunch from Subway, a blinding buy one footlong and get another free offer which we used several times. That was a good day.

Avatar Letting the new year in

We are about to find ourselves in 2025, the quarter-way mark of 21st century, a bewildering thought for those of us who still think of the 21st century as some weird new thing and the 20th century as a kind of default.

Since 2025 is going to be rung in nationwide with the traditional combination of drinking, forgetting the words to Auld Lang Syne and feeling like new year never lives up to the hype, it feels like a good moment to look back at the moment, 25 years ago, when we rung in the new millennium.

You join 16-year-old Chris at his aunt and uncle’s house, this being the venue for the family’s new year celebrations at the end of 1999. Most of the family is here, at a big house in a village near Selby. Music is playing, drinks are flowing, and every conceivable surface is creaking under the weight of bowls of nibbles and snacks.

My family has a longstanding tradition – much beloved of my grandma, who is here somewhere, probably on one of the La-Z-Boy recliner chairs in the living room with a glass of Bailey’s – that the new year must be “let in”.

This tradition stipulates that good luck will befall the family for the coming year if the first person to open the door and cross the threshold on the first of January is a tall, dark man bearing symbolic gifts. Should anyone else be the first to open the door and “let the new year in” – a chubby ginger toddler, perhaps, or a fair-haired woman of merely average stature – the year would be beset with problems. My grandma often told a cautionary tale of the year she absent mindedly unlocked the front door and went into the house first, only to find she had let the new year in herself. Nothing went right that year.

For many years my grandad was nominated to let the new year in. He was an imposing figure, a senior policeman over six feet in height with a no-nonsense jawline and black hair. Luck was always on their side when he turned the door handle. But over the years the duties were shared out. Once he had grown up my dad got to do it sometimes, or his brother. At my aunt and uncle’s house my uncle – not easily described as “tall”, but certainly dark haired and a man – would do the honours.

Anyway, the millennium was considered a special event. I was 16, and to my surprise was asked to let in the new year. The news was broken to me in hushed tones, a coming-of-age moment and a sign that I was joining the grown ups.

At about ten to midnight, I put my coat on and was handed the gifts I was to bring in. There was the shiniest coin anyone could find, to bring wealth; a match and a piece of coal, to bring warmth; and some food, to bring food or plenty or something like that. And with my pockets duly stuffed, I stepped out of the door.

Not much was happening outside, so I walked round to the living room window, where I could see everyone inside and could make out the Hootenanny on TV. The cat was sitting on the windowsill so I gave him a scratch under the chin. After a while, the moment arrived, there was much cheering, and inside the house glasses were clinked and hugs were exchanged. In the distance some fireworks started to go off. I then made my way to the front door to let myself and the new year in. It was locked. Nobody had put the Yale lock on the sneck, so when I went out it had locked itself.

I knocked on the door. Nobody was in the kitchen. I rang the bell. Nobody could hear it over the music. I went back to the living room window. Nobody was looking. Eventually, when there was a lull in the music, I banged on the double glazing, someone finally saw me, and there was a stampede to the door as it dawned on the party that one of their number had been standing outside since the previous century.

When the door finally opened, I’m not sure whether it was me or the cat that actually let the new year in. But I can make the claim that, 25 years ago, I saw in the new millennium standing on my own, in a front garden, and holding a match, some coal, a slice of white bread and a 50p piece.

This year I intend, once again, to be safely inside a warm house when the fireworks begin. Having tried the alternative I recommend it. Wherever you are, have a very happy new year. And don’t forget your lump of coal when you step through the front door.

Avatar WFH

My job isn’t one you can do from home, so while the rest of the world has spent the last few years abandoning the office, I’ve still been turning up in person like some sort of mug.

The other day I had the opportunity to spend a day working from home, and grabbed it with both hands. I had lots of project work to do and none of it required me to be in the building: I had some training videos that needed voiceovers recording, I had documentation to write and I had some development work to do on some internal web tools I wrote. So on Friday I fired up a work laptop at home and got stuck in.

Not only did I get more sleep and avoid the time and cost of about 3½ hours of commuting, I also got loads done. Here is a summary of how I spent my ten hour shift.

ActivityDuration
Attend morning meeting for WFH staff through my phone because the laptop wasn’t logged in yet0h 30m
Struggle to get the work laptop to connect to my home wifi and talk to IT support about proxy settings0h 45m
Check emails0h 10m
Make coffee, get distracted by arrival of post0h 10m
Open training slides in Powerpoint, set up USB microphone and headphones, test setup, get distracted and read news articles on the Guardian website1h
Do Guardian Quick Crossword #169720h 15m
Start recording voiceover, discover time limit on Powerpoint recordings, search for alternative screen recording software, install on work laptop0h 25m
Dog arrives in room, play with dog0h 30m
See message on phone, reply to message, see notification on Reddit, scroll through Reddit0h 20m
Break for lunch1h
Unlock laptop, set Teams status to “available”; toilet break0h 10m
Start recording voiceover with new software, get lost on complex slide animation twenty minutes in, discover there is no edit feature, resign self to having to start recording again, become despondent about project, make tea, look at phone again for a bit1h 30m
Let dog out for a wee, throw ball for dog which gets dog excited, dog spends extended period of time on very wet lawn, dog runs back inside and through house with muddy paws. Clean dog’s paws. Clean kitchen, dining room and hallway floors with Dettol wipes0h 45m
See email from team leader asking how day is going, redraft reply eight times, eventually just say it’s going well thanks0h 15m
Notice office-hours staff will be leaving work in 15 minutes, write email asking complex question about SQL database backups for web app that I need to work on, send email slightly too late for it to be seen or dealt with before Monday0h 30m
Rehearse complex slide animation that tripped me up before, change animation after rehearsal, fail to rehearse new animation sequence0h 30m
Make tea, get distracted by dog, play with dog0h 30m
Start recording voiceover, get lost on changed animation sequence twenty minutes in, plough on anyway since interest in project is now waning, continue to end of recording0h 40m
Discover freeware screen recording software has recorded in some random format to some place in the cloud, attempt to download and convert this to something useful0h 20m
Send email to team leaders shared inbox about something unrelated to today’s work to prove I am still online at the end of my shift0h 5m
Log off0h 5m

Avatar Shake your fist harder, boy!

I am knee-deep in the middle of lots of boring house chores. This is my first time on the house purchase bandwagon so whilst I have had some experience painting, decorating and very basic DIY from living in my flat, there’s still a lot that I don’t know.

That’s fine, nobody comes into the world with a drill and the ability to rewire a kitchen. I do what I can and accept help from others when it’s necessary to do so. What I am learning though is that wallpaper is a pain in the arse and should never ever be considered.

Why’s that? What’s so wrong with wallpaper I hear you ask? It looks great when it’s on the wall but flip reverse that sandwich and consider when taking it off. Vikki used the wallpaper remover which turned the room into a sauna from all the heat. Even then, you still have to scrap it off. Once that’s done you have to prepare the walls because you can’t paint over that. This is where the big scandal comes in.

Sugar soap is awful. It’s useless. I think personally it’s the biggest con. You spray or wipe this gunk on the wall to help remove the old wallpaper paste and clean the wall so you don’t have ugly bumpy bits when painting. That all makes perfect sense. You know what’s actually doing all the work though? A combination of the warm water, the sponge / scouring pad and my fucking arm. It’s got nothing to do with the bright yellow liquid we’re forking out 3 to 4 quid a pop on. I had one of those squirty bottle versions and it was three quarters done on one bedroom. The label itself says to, “use liberally”; no doubt to send whatever poor sucker who purchased it back to the shop to buy more of it.

I am never, ever using wallpaper. I have made this decision based on scrubbing eight walls in two rooms and not seeing any difference. Wallpaper can get to fuck. Sugar soap can get to fuck.

Old man rant done. Over and out.

Avatar Good deed o’clock

What’s a modern day hero to you? Is it someone who saves your life after getting your tie caught in a printing press or is it the person who hands you your sandwich and wishes you a good day? What even classes as a good deed anymore when the tiniest thing can be misconstrued or misunderstood?

It’s a good job that I’m such a good egg, ready to put all of you to shame with the sheer wealth the SHEER PLETHORA of good deeds that I’ve knocked up this month. My days have been brimming with altruism that I don’t even know where to start. I suppose I’ll have to cut them down to, I don’t know, a list of three, the three main ones, so that you don’t all die of embarrassment.

Don’t tell me that I never do anything for you.

  1. Package save – when I was out walking the doggo one afternoon-o I chanced upon a package in the street-o. The delivery truck-o must have dropped it-o when they were doing something else. I took it back home and checked where the address-o was and, thankfully, it wasn’t too far away-o. Later on that day-o, I posted it through the person’s letterbox so that they safely received their goods.
  2. Pigeon save – when I was out walking the doggo one afternoon (again?), we turned the corner and I went to put the doggo’s poo bag in the bin. What I wasn’t expecting was a pigeon to be staring back at me from inside the bin. It looked a big manky and had green stuff smeared on its wing, as if someone had thrown a drink and showered the poor thing. I ran back to the flat, picked up a few items and then carefully (hands wrapped in empty poo bags) scooped it up and placed it on the floor. After a drink of water, it looked a lot better. I was reluctant to give it food in case this was some kind of pigeon grift and a thousand pigeons all flocked towards me as soon as I brought out a bag of breadcrumbs.
  3. Spoon save – I gave a friend at work a plastic spoon so they could eat their breakfast.

Personally, I think the last one is the most important because if you don’t have the right implement, how are you going to eat your oats? Think about it.

Avatar Tile saga

Would you like to have a go at tiling? You should try it, it’s very satisfying. The only thing you need to consider is that your first project should start off small so you can get the hang of it.

Our utility room has a toilet and a tiny microsink, but the sink was on a painted wall so water would splash on the paint all the time. It needed some tiles. Do a bit of googling and the entire internet will tell you that tiling a splashback is one of the simplest jobs and a great way for a beginner to learn tiling. Great, I thought. I’ll do that then.

The project scope expanded a bit, so now we are tiling the wall around the sink, and the windowsill which didn’t have an actuall sill, and the wall beside the toilet because it’s just a big empty wall and it will look nice. No problem. Bigger than a splashback but that’s just more tiles to stick on, not more difficulty.

All of the above is incorrect. It turns out that I have selected the world’s most fiddly tiling job as my first foray into the world of tiling. This isn’t an easy beginner’s introduction. It is a Tile Saga.

  • The sink is hard up against the side wall, so ideally would be removed so that the wall to the side and behind it could be tiled and the sink re-attached on top of the tiles. But it would have to be replaced slightly to the right, which is further than the pipes will reach, so it would all need re-plumbing, which I am not prepared to do.
  • Therefore the sink must stay in place and have tiles cut to go around it. But the sink is entirely curved – every part of it is curved, even across the top, where it could easily just be flat. So all the tiles around it must be cut with very specific and unique curves in them.
  • There are three pipes underneath and another pipe coming out of the side wall for the toilet cistern overflow. Tiles must be cut around these, requiring more curved cuts.
  • There’s no point getting an extremely expensive tile drill because they are for cutting circles in the middle of tiles, which I don’t need because all the pipes meet joints, and anyway the pipes are all different sizes and the curves are all unique and not even a consistent radius, so every curved cut needs to be done manually.
  • I have therefore invested in an angle grinder with a diamond cutting disc, which lets me cut very thin slices, and gentle curves, and notches out of tiles to go around the corners of the window. The angle grinder is the single most terrifying object I own because it cuts through ceramic tiles like soft butter and would remove fingers or even whole limbs if given half a chance. The tiles are small and must be held in place when you cut them so your fingers are very close to the blade. I am scared whenever I have to turn it on.
  • The angle grinder still cannot cut tight enough curves to get the pipework or the tighter sink edges right, so those bits must be manually filed out of the tiles using a file, which can take up to 20 minutes for a single tile and produces huge volumes of ceramic tile dust, as does the angle grinder now I come to think about it.
  • I didn’t think about the dust until I developed a dry cough which has mostly gone now but still occasionally rears its head.

The tiles arrived in April and I have now finished tiling the two walls and the windowsill. They still need grouting which is another new skill I am now approaching with some trepidation because it must surely hold further unknown pitfalls.

The other windowsill and the backsplash around the worktop at the other side of the utility room need tiling too, but that can now wait for a few months because I need to do some jobs in the garden and tiling the utility room has used up all my DIY time so far this summer.

The tiling looks nice.

I am pleased with the result.

I am glad I don’t have any more pipes or curved bits to do.

I’m pretty sure I am now due an honorary doctorate in tiling.