Water On the Brain**

Memo To Self: it is not a good idea to buy the cheapest hot water bottle you can. There’s quite frugal and then there’s too frugal…

Two years ago I made these for Cornerstones – some fleece covers for this pair of hotties [I think from Tesco's but can't remember now]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Sunday night when we got to Norfolk, it was rather chilly. Also Bob was concerned that the pressure had dropped in the combi-boiler and the radiators were not heating up as they should.

So we boiled the kettle, made a pot of tea, and also filled our two hotties. I wrapped them in our pjs and put them into the bed to warm it up.

I climbed into bed and began reading my magazine. Bliss! 36 hours of relaxation ahead of me.

 

Then Bob pulled out his pjs – and they were very damp. His bottle was leaking! Frantic stripping of bed, [fortunately not too wet] – draping of sheets to dry out, and we decamped to the back bedroom [grateful that we had left that room ready for use]

Hottie consigned to bin.

Bob checked on the net using his phone [no laptop!] and found details of how to re-pressurise the heating system. However, when he turned the valve thingy on the pipe thingy [note my highly technical language here] the other end of aforementioned pipe was not properly connected. Water came out onto kitchen floor. He quickly rectified the problem and clean towels were thrown down onto the floor to mop up that damp patch.

Are you spotting a pattern here?

Fortunately after that, the mattress dried well, and the heating worked well, and on Monday morning we went into Dereham and replaced the leaking bottle with a better quality one.

The lady in the lovely bead shop [website] where I browsed for ages, but did not buy anything – told me Dereham has at least eleven charity shops now. Which seems a lot for a small market town.

I decided to have a look in the charity shops for a little glass jug for salad dressings [as mentioned here] to go with all these “Jamie’s 30 minute meals” I keep producing.

Last week our “Jamie’s Garlic Crusher” arrived, and we have both been having fun ‘firing’ garlic into our cooking!

We bought it through Amazon – and were especially pleased about this purchase. For a start, we used up some vouchers we’d got [so it sort of feels ‘free’] and since we got ours, the price has gone up, and the website says  ‘temporarily out of stock’

My quest was very successful – a total outlay of £1.60 got these two

The remainder of our stay in Norfolk was uneventful and slightly more restful – but we have now realised the little bedside clock in the back bedroom has an absurdly irregular tick [apologies to any guests whose sleep patterns have been disturbed by this!] – that was a cheap freebie from somewhere or other, but it will have to go, I think. Cannot cope with the tick tock tick TOCK TICK tick tock … loud and soft in a quite random manner.

Came back to Leicestershire very early on Tuesday morning, and found that the flowers here [which I had remembered to give fresh water before leaving on Sunday] were still looking splendid.

These cut flowers look splendid in our yellow dining room [a gift from the chapel where I preached on Sunday night]

And at the back of the basket of pink tulips [now flopping all over the place] there were some lovely, freshly opened, red and white blooms.

Looking at the astonishing way these petals are coloured, you can begin to understand how Dutchmen were mesmerised by ‘Tulipmania’ in 1636 and spent a fortune on bulbs.

Back to the original ‘damp’ discussion…

1. “Piso Mojado” is Spanish for “Wet Floor” – and it is a very satisfying phrase to yell, when you feel like yelling something.
2. **Water On The Brain, as any fule kno, is best cured by a Tap On the Head