FastFreddy2

The Freddies are getting ready to go see Jupiter Ascending. Despite me saying I wasn't going to return. I can't believe how much it might cost to go see a film, locally in 3D; £12-50 each!! Not hard to understand why people would invest in home cinema systems. Not only spending silly amounts to see a film (once) but having to suffer the munchers and slurpers ..... £25 per couple for half a night out .... Get the DVD for £12/£13 and watch as many times as you like ..... Can I wait?

The new key is due this week, hopefully by the time I've written this, the garage will have rung back with news on the keys arrival. The first part of the new tooth has been done. For the first time ever, the dentist (lovely man) hurt me while preparing the tooth for a crown. He did offer to re-fill the tooth, but on his advice I went for the £219 solution, which is metal crown. Usually I would have a white one, but there just isn't room. The grandson calls them 'gangster teeth' because they are made of gold, (and very strong). Luckily for me I have plenty of bone under the broken tooth, so a crown was possible after all. The difficulty was in pushing back (cutting) the gum to expose the base of the tooth. Brushing my teeth wasn't easy for a couple of days either because the gum was healing. The cut on my hand has healed for the most part. The Steri-strips kept the cut so well closed, there is hardly a mark to be seen. The actual cut is drying out and cracking slightly. I will need to keep this moisturised I suppose to keep the skin there supple. Even though the wound has closed, it still 'stings' when I stretch my hand out. I guess this is the inside of the cut still repairing things like nerve endings. It's nice to not worry about getting my hand wet, a problem that has been a bit frustrating some days. Garage has rung me back .... New key arrived (didn't say when) but car can't be booked in for reprogramming until 16th Feb. I asked if I should have booked the reprogramming job in when I ordered the key? No, I was told, as we don't like to book the car in until the key arrives to be sure the key is available for programming. So it'll be a month we've had the car with no blipper (remote). A bit of a hardship for Mrs Freddy who currently has to open the car in the mornings, in the dark. So, had my trousers taken down on price, and again on service. Worse, the fella on the phone says; We need your old blipper to reprogramme too. I said no-one has mentioned to me it could be reprogrammed? 'Been doing it 20 years' says he ..... So I could have saved myself the replacement cost? says I. 'Possibly', says he ... I currently have steam coming out of my ears ....

Found on an auction site: Offered as US10/UK8 at £36. I'm tempted (I like them) but from Hungary and £10.50 carriage..... Alba it turns out, is a wholesaler doing a bit of retailing. Best I could find on their site currently, are >> these << Sizes only go to US11/UK9.

There's plenty more, I just picked some examples. It should surprise no-one that (i) I like the heels on 2 and 3 because of their shape and (ii) because they have slim shafts. As I've mentioned many times, I've got legs like the proverbial matchsticks. My concern about buying, is disposing or returning something that didn't fit. Returning with proof of delivery would be prohibitive, which leaves selling on. I'm not sure I wouldn't lose 50% (or more) of the purchase cost, reselling on an auction site. At the moment I'm not that keen. The DinoDirect site did have some ankle boots, that were obviously Louboutin copies, at £36. I was tempted, but that price is borderline for VAT and import duties/costs. For me, that could add as much as £18/£20. The 'jury' was out so long, they seem to have stopped selling them. Ho-hum.

Aliexpress. THE sales platform for Chinese manufacturers. Boot 1 Boot 2 Boot 3 The guy that owns the site is a zillionaire if I have it right, (Bill Gates territory), so it can't be bad?

Didn't someone put a link, to quite a promising one on here somewhere, not so long ago? If I remember, they did larger sizes too? P.S. Bit embarrassing..... Seemingly "pipped" by over 30 minutes ..... I removed my original text that mentioned DinoDirect and Tbdress as neither one (having trawled their web sites - for around 40 minutes) had me finding any styles in larger sizes which I had thought prudent to check for BEFORE hitting the <post> button. Then, remembering Puffer's post, I finally added the comment above. Only to find I'm an echo ..... (Duh!)

I too have changed my M.O. for selling some styles. Historically, I would price the shoes or boots at what I would consider 'reasonable' as a seller, and hoped my pictures and description would boost any interest. I'm not sure if I've ever used the word "sexy", but I hope not. I tend to suggest the heels I sell are difficult to walk in or a 'challenge'. I want to appeal to male buyers, or girls who don't get to wear very high shoes because they just aren't out there at sensible money. If email addresses are anything to go by, a good 75% of my shoe and boot sales are going to men. If the shoes/boots don't sell at the price I'd hoped for in auction, I would reduce the price perhaps once a month. Bit like a Dutch auction but over a much longer period.... The change has been some fixed priced offerings, with possibly a "make an offer" thrown in, but this is not common. I tend to use the fixed price option for higher priced items, and I've met with some success using it. Sold some unused (still shrink wrapped) software, and shoes from £26, right up to £80. Almost everything shoe/boot I've sold like this, has been new. I mentioned previously the need to move on a big chunk of the collection. I don't expect to get 'good' money for the most part, but the space is more important at the moment. Despite the choice I have in styles and heel heights, I'm tending to wear one of three styles. The current fav' is the one in the avatar, but they are not walking around all day shoes, they are just too high. New Years eve' I walked 3 miles in them, and the last half mile was a killer. I doubt I'll ever find a better 5" heel for walking out in daylight though. Since most of the styles I have are boots, I need to get a wiggle on and start selling my surplus. The weather in the UK -at the moment- is decidedly cool. Low single figures, and smatterings of snow in the South. Proper snow up North. Good time to sell?

It looks like a shoe designed to be worn by men under trousers perhaps? The lower shoe line producing the illusion of a modest-heel on the shoe, where there is (actually) a fairly decent rise...

They say trouble comes in 3's? Mrs Freddy had identified No.3 at the end of last week, so significant, I can't remember what it was, meaning it must have been a bit trivial.... So, microwaved keys, broken tooth, and today (Sunday), I got a gash in my hand so bad I should have visited A+E ..... While helping a family member to move, I had the luck to find a sharp edge on a large glass door that was part of a double wardrobe. The door was so heavy, it took three of us to move it safely. ("Safely" meaning as to not drop it or bash it against a wall.) My hand wasn't cut by glass, but by a metal trim. Imagine griping a Stanley blade with some force, and you have some idea of the cut depth. It was dressed, and dressed quite well too I might add, but Steri-strips and a pressure bandage would not stop the bleeding. Two hours later and back at home, I removed the dressings and blood still poured from the cut. I suspect I could have nicked a vein though palms are not a likely place for a vein? A further two hours of continued pressure and no movement allowed some of the cut to stay closed, (blood is glue if you don't know) but one end of the cut still had blood leaking as soon as the pressure pad was removed. I took a chance, and with some help from the queezy Mrs Freddy, got the cut closed but had to use a whole pack of Steri-strip to do it! Immediately over the strips I used a sterile non-stick vented plastic covered pad, then folded about 5 pieces of kitchen roll into a thick pad, that I've then used for a pressure bandage, My palm has been fairly tightly wrapped with a stretch gauze that should help to keep the wound closed. I've seen less bloody/deep cuts stitched with thread, but the prospect of a 5 hour wait for 3 or 4 stitches has led me to try the DIY route first. The cut has been sterilised twice, (the clean with surgical spirit wasn't nice) so I'm hoping the risk of infection is small. Though the 'luck' I've had this week .....

If I read it right, delivery was something like £15, which still brings it in under £600. I haven't checked my local stores yet to see what they can do, so carriage might not be required if I search for a bit longer. The plumber, (who does a job as good as I would - but is 10 times faster) and his Gas Safe pal might be able to get a deal too, I just haven't asked yet. The current 'system' boiler is about 4ft from an outside wall (in the garage) so a replacement will go in the same place. Unlike the previous installer - who failed to replace a completely welded-with-age internal stop cock while changing the boiler - the (new) plumber has already told me he would insist on lagging ALL exposed pipework. He can't believe the previous installer didn't lag pipes that potentially run next to a car, but also wastes heat warming up a garage! The "condensate" (run off pipe to me) is already piped to an internal rainwater downpipe. The garage sticks out proud from the main brickwork of the building, and the rainwater pipe for the small flat roof section of the garage is set back inside the garage, so the condensate pipe is a short run, and a warm one thanks to unlagged pipework. I bookmarked that link for the pump anyway, so thanks for that. Got an injury to my hand today, (read about that elsewhere) so the asbestos tests might get delayed....

I've found a place that has the boiler for the right money. As for "fitments", that'll be someone elses job. I have a Magna Clean filter already, but the Spirovent is a new one on me. Still not decided what to do, or rather, which way to jump. The unvented water tank doesn't take up much room, and I like the idea of one - a lot. When I have the garage tested for asbestos, if it comes back negative the tank can go in there. If not, I will be compelled to leave the garage alone and change the boiler. I have the all-singing-all-dancing control system, care of an earlier problem (above.) With any luck, I'll get around to the asbestos tests this week.

And talk about kick-a-man-while-he's down ...... Broke a tooth yesterday (Wednesday) eating a peanut-butter sandwich. (I know .... what do I have for teeth, white chocolate?) So at the dentist this morning for emergency repair - if possible. After 30 minutes of poking around, debate and sob story about microwaving car keys, I have a choice of (i) £50 for filling with risk of heavily filled tooth cracking again and being lost altogether, or (ii) £219 NHS crown, or (iii) £450 private crown. At the moment, I have asked for the £219 crown. Earlier in the week I might have invested in the £450 jobbie because the repair is to a tooth I've already had £600 worth of root canal work done (privately) and since I don't have any form of insurance cover for these events, I have to make the pennies count. A good number of people I know (poor people like me) wouldn't spend over £800 on one tooth, so why have I? About 2 years ago, (or was it three) I had a sick wisdom tooth pulled rather than spend money having the root filled. I was told, the tooth touched nothing, so contributed very little to masticating food. Saving £600 was appealing. Since the tooth was removed, I don't think there's been a single second I've thought it was a good decision (in hindsight). It's left a gap in my mouth I'm quite unhappy with and the tooth next to the gap (now) feels like it's larger than it was before, as the tooth line no longer blends in with my jaw as it used to. Lesson learned?

Had a look at Pro-Combi Exclusive 30kW prices. Very attractive. Some of the stalling point for the replacement, has been my love of a Viessmann boiler.... But that can wait for a house I intend to keep. I think the boiler we have at the moment is a 19kw Worcester "system" boiler. Heats up the house -just- given some of the rads are next to useless, though provides fast reheat of hot water for our gravity fed hot water system. BUT, I have promised herself a fairly good shower the other side of me sorting out the plumbing. We have very good water pressure so the bottleneck, as you rightly say, is the heating capacity of the boiler in a high demand situation. An unvented tank would allow us to keep our current boiler, and get hot water from a showerhead at mains pressure too, without any concern about heating water on-the-fly as is the case with a combi. There isn't much to be had either way in saving money on a budget. The combi will need lots of new pipework (ref leaks) as would any pressurised system I introduce. A Santon unvented tank goes for similar money to the Pro-Combi, and installation costs will be similar. A new owner will only understand "the new boiler" concept of course. "Space" may be the deciding factor. We have plenty, but every cubic centimetre comes at a premium when remodelling a house to suit "everyone".

I've done the same thing myself many times. Put something in a place -so safe- even I wouldn't think to look there! My car from Kia came with two identical 'blippers'. Mrs Freddy got two keys with her old car, but not the new SEAT. It came with a 'blipper', and one plain key with transponder. No transponder reply from the key, no running engine. (I think the transponder allows the immobiliser to be switched off, or stops it kicking in.) Not only did I cook the transponder, but the blipper doesn't work either. One of the people I rang for help said; "If the transponder doesn't work, the key is garbage." So a replacement is required. The car can be used with the plain key, but no remote locking function is available. Historically, VW/SEAT keys could be partially disassembled. The 'blipper' could be separated from the actual key, for replacement or repair. The new SEAT key, not only has a slightly different design, it's actually been made to ENSURE it can't be repaired or disassembled. Consequently, any new key HAS to come from the factory in Spain. I paid for that today, £145. And now I have to wait 2 weeks for it to arrive. When it does arrive, I have to book the car and the new key in for the programming; that will cost another £56. On some of the 'support' bulletin boards, main dealers are nicknamed or referred to as "stealers". In this instance I would agree. £200 for a replacement is taking the proverbial micky. The actual key is cut by computer, along with thousands of other keys, so will cost pennies. The older blippers are available new -at retail- somewhere between £27 and £37, and the expensive bit is the unprogrammed transponder. (Which is coded once and locked.) Programming takes seconds with the right software and suitable connector. There's a lot of 'fat' in an item that could be retailed for around £40, but costs people £200. Hence me feeling like I'm having my trousers taken down....

Forget you left your remote key fob for your car hidden in the microwave oven while you were out the night before, and 'cook' the fob along with your breakfast in the morning..... I cried a lot today ...... And yes, £200, for a new (2014) SEAT remote key. Plus a 10 working day/2 week wait for it to be shipped from Spain. Lots and lots of crying.....

Not with a backside like that .... Pretty sure they used a womans lower and a mans upper for the effect. Amusing though?

I am between a rock and a hard place with this. My home is a a reasonable size, despite only having two of us to rattle around it. The previous owner had a new boiler installed 18 months before we bought the place. The problem we have (as does every house we've into of the same design), cracked ceilings in the bathroom, where the fill/empty cycle of the cold water tank directly above it, has cracked the plasterboard joins. Obviously, the joins were not done to the belt and braces standard I plan to employ to remedy the problem; 9mm marine ply across joins with plasterboard glued to ply - joins completely filled with adhesive filler - fibre tape with a more flexible screed than originally used...... But longterm, the space above the bathroom would be better if it were empty, meaning the cold water tank has to go. If it does, so will the hot water tank ... unless ..... The compromise, is an unvented hot water tank. This was 2014's plan, right up until "we" (me) realised the site for the new tank wouldn't allow access to anything the other side of it. Plan was shelved. Back to the rather unattractive option of combi boiler. The house needs about 11kw to heat it, but to get any the sort of heated water volume required for a half decent shower, I'm looking at 25-30kw. Ridiculous size of boiler that'll get 20 minutes of use each day. Either option puts the hot/cold feeds in a central location, and the limited pipe runs would be kept short (with the single exception of a ground floor toilet (that I'm told we are keeping). At the moment, the hot water tank supplies hot water by going through 2 bedrooms, along an upper landing, through a third bedroom, before descending to the kitchen. The bathroom is fed in a similar way; through the same two bedrooms, and into the bathroom. There isn't any reason I can understand, the bathroom isn't fed directly from the hot tank that sits 5ft from the bathroom? (Opposite side of the landing in fact.) As I said before, lunatic grade design. The redesign brings hot water up directly into the bathroom from the floor below, with a shorter pipe run from the (new) hot water tank, or combi boiler, than the current route from the old hot water tank. The pipe run to the kitchen will be significantly shorter. Thing is ..... everyone things combi's are the energy saving god. I think unvented hot water tanks are. All that heated water at mains pressure/flow rates!

Thanks Puffer for all the sound advice. I too am 'old school' in that end-feed soldered joints are my preferred method of connection. Despite me saying I will use plastic, I still haven't, even though it might make life a tad easier..... Short history of the place I live in ..... The whole plumbing system in my house was routed by a certifiable lunatic. Joints don't seem to have been cleaned after soldering either, and the job was obviously 'piece-work' done on a Friday afternoon after a liquid lunch. In at least three places, I have found pipework position higher than the lowest point of the floorboards. How was this amazing feat achieved? In two places the floorboards had bumps in them, on the third, the pipe was crimped by the floorboard. My next door neighbour keeps telling me these house are really well built. Recent personal experience suggests otherwise..... So.... The house was thrown together around the middle of the 1970's, or there abouts. Seems there was a copper shortage, so pipe was made with ingredients that haven't stood the test of time. In 'the trade' the copper is now known to have been defective, and it's referred to as 'copper cancer'. One of the pictures on an earlier page shoes what it looks like close up. There are perhaps 3 off 22mm pipe runs in my house, that are prone to this problem. All have hot water running through them. The cold 22mm pipes don't seem to be suffering, nor -so far- does the heating system and the inhibitor may be helping with that. The leak we had a couple of days ago, was in a pipe run I had effected a temporary repair to, 3 times already. The 'patch' repairs worked, and I have a product/system that removes the leak in about 15 minutes without doing anything other than fitting a patch. Cutting the rotten bit out of the pipe never seemed attractive, because the joint may not have enough material left around it to tolerate soldering, nor enough material to hold an olive ring inside a coupling (though I did use 1 where there was no other choice.) This time around, the leak was on a bend, so no patch possible. I have a 15mm pipe bender, but as yet, no 22mm pipe bender. I could have given in (having avoided changing the just under 3m pipe run three times already) and used 22mm elbows for corners, but these need a lot more heat and access wasn't easy. I elected to use reducers, and effectively replace the 22mm run with 15mm pipe. The run included dipping under a partition wall, and resurfacing in the bathroom. (Pictures to follow.) The details of the job ..... To get at the leak position, I had to cut 3 floorboards, without cutting pipes or electric underneath. When I found the leak, I realised a patch wasn't going to work. Towels were used to catch/absorb water already leaked out, and more water as it came out. I turned off mains water in the loft, and began draining the tanks as the pipe to be worked on had to be completely empty of water, so ALL the cold/hot fill was emptied. If I had locked off the water supply, a vacuum would have held water in the pipes. I cut the long pipe (with 2 repairs) as short as I dare to attached an in-line coupling. I disconnected the joint in the bathroom, at the 'wet' side of the newly installed valve (that normally allows me to cut the hot water to sink and bath.) The pipe wouldn't wriggle loose, so it had to be cut again. I still couldn't pull it through, so cut the first bend off (back in the bedroom) removing the third repair. Not only does the pipe run go from one room to another, it actually crosses over, two other pipes.... First part of the job was working out how the replacement could be joined. Eventually it became obvious I could do a lot of sub-assembly before laying the pipe run. The bathroom side was done by using a 22mm stub pipe, to end feed connector, to reducer to 15mm stub pipe to 15mm bend, to 10 inch length of 15mm pipe. A piece of leftover wood was screws to the joist for support, should I need it later (I did). Next was to measure (roughly) the length of pipe to go under the partition wall, over the pipes running ALONG the partition, and into the bathroom. That done, I put a 90 degree bend in the pipe. I trimmed the length of pipe in the bedroom side, to approximately where I thought it safe to solder a joint, between joists. I then made another sub-assembly of 22mm pipe, end feed coupler, reducer. I fitted the 22mm end into the glanded coupler I HAD TO USE to join the stub of the rotten pipe I couldn't easily remove due to it's proximity to joists. Once the sub-assembly was in the right location, I cut the long pipe with 90 degree bend to the finished size, and soldered the joint. In the bathroom, I now had a good idea where the last two joints were joints to be, so I trial fitted another 90 degree joint on the end of the first sub-assembly. The angle of the joint was/is critical, because both ends of the sub-assembly had to be in the right place. (I suppose a plumber would have just added bits as they might go along the route, but I was trying to avoid putting heat under floorboard level if possible.) The trial fit worked, so the 12 inch length was soldered. That left one 45 degree joint to do. This one HAD to be done under floorboard level, and right next to a joist. Ironically, it was right next to where the leak had been. The joist had been soaking wet 4-5 hours earlier, but had started drying out so it had to be completely wetted again. The sub-assembly was propped up in-situ (that block of wood screwed to a joist providing me with a third hand I didn't have at 2am). The last joint was soldered in place. The sub-assembly 22mm stub was fitted back into the 22mm hot water valve. The replacement pipe run was complete. Although I did have the chance to carry out the repair during the day, I did not have the agility of mind to recognise the noise I'd heard earlier in the day, was water leaking inside my house. That said, unlike previous leaks, this one has dried quite quickly, indicating water wasn't leaking for long anyway. Other than faulty soldering, that pipe should be good for 20+ years now. Not that it needs to be. When I finally work out if I'm going to replace our nearly new boiler with a combi (or stick to the original Plan A), every single bit of 22mm pipe that's currently a liability will be obsolete, and will be removed. (With great pleasure!) That time MUST be soon. (As I've been saying for 3 years.)