Hazards of the building trade vol iii

With the boiler shed gone, it was time for the builders to turn their attention to fitting slabs to the top of the wall between the beer garden and the car park. As part of this operation the redundant gas pipe was to be removed. “Are you sure it’s dead” asked the builder. “Absolutely” I assured him, “the plumber was here last month and disconnected it below the meter” I even took him into the back kitchen to show him the cut off and capped pipe for reassurance.

Well, you’ve probably already guessed where this is going. A few minutes later there was a shout of alarm from the builder’s mate and the sound of an angle grinder being dropped in a hurry. I went to investigate and discovered that we now had a very unorthodox (and not very effective) patio heater consisting of a six foot flame roaring from the end of the cut pipe.

I phoned the plumber who wasn’t answering. Then the fire brigade arrived having been summoned by a concerned passer by in the car park. This was a good thing because Mick, the plumber is also a volunteer fireman. He spent ten minutes explaining to highly amused colleagues why the gas pipe he had cut off was still live and a few more finding out where the pipe was fed from. Meanwhile Lorna went out and bought doughnuts for the fire crew and builders.

BBC Scotland was never this exciting.

Customer service - another rant

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before the various pieces of hand knitted software that I have developed over the years at the hotel. One of these is a point of sale application which is currently used in the restaurant but which is going to be moved to the bar. Before this can happen we needed a cash drawer and a printer (the cash drawer is opened via the printer). So I contacted a company called Primemark (no, not the cheap clothes shop) and ordered a Star printer and cash drawer. Two months later neither item had arrived. I phoned yesterday and cancelled the printer. I would have cancelled the cash drawer too, but they said it had been dispatched.

I phoned another company - The Computer Store in Carmarthen and was told that the item was in stock and would be delivered today. It was. The cash drawer is nowhere to be seen.

I can understand this kind of disregard for customers from government departments and suchlike, but from a supposedly commercial company it’s frankly baffling. “Oh well” said the chap at the Computer Store, “their loss, my gain”

Another brick out of the wall

Good progress to report on the demolition of the boiler shed. That’s mainly because I’m not doing it. Laidlaw’s have reduced the shed to rubble in three days, have taken the old chimney down and have roughly the same number of fingers they started with. The area will be covered with decking to match the existing stuff and the extended beer garden will  shortly open to a fanfare of trumpets and three months of torrential rain.

Miz Frances meanwhile went to see a nice woman who poked needles into her. Yes, it’s vaccination time. Much unhappiness. Difficult to reason with a six month old that it’s all for the best and she’ll thank us for it later. She’s snoozing peacefully now anyway. Nine for breakfast tomorrow. Better get set up. Goodnight

Say cheese!

Frances is six months old today. Hooray!

Leave it to the experts

The builders arrived this morning to finish off the demolition of the boiler shed. I watched from a safe distance. The bricks are well cemented together and take some time and persuasion to come apart. When they do, it’s usually in large blocks of six or more bricks and this, I think, is what went wrong when I tried my ill fated demolition.

Because a block of eight bricks, although nearly half the size of the concrete lintel, is nowhere near half its weight. Having spent the morning moving segments of brickwork with relative ease I assumed that the lintel would be about twice as heavy.

Wrongggg! Pre-stressed concrete is, as I now know incredibly heavy and nothing I could do was going to have any significant effect on its rapid plummet to earth. Well, no point in crying over spilt fingers; it’s coming down and the extended beer garden’s going to look good.

Early bird

A bright sunny morning in Jed (though the sun dived behind a cloud as I was writing that) and a feeling that today would be an ideal time to buy fresh supplies for breakfast…

…but yesterday would have been better:S

Oh well. The five folk who are working at the woollen mill down the road didn’t mind two bits of haggis instead of one black pudding and one haggis. The butcher will be open in an hour, so I can get stocked up then.

Yesterday morning was spent installing low energy floodlights. These items, precision manufactured in the people’s republic of China from tinfoil and bendy plastic replace the big mercury units which wolfed up a kilowatt between them. From the outside the level of illumination is not that different and the power consumption is 90% less.

Lorna’s off to Edinburgh for emergency dental work, so I’m minding the shop and the baby. She’ll be back in the afternoon along with my niece, Charlie who will be doing waitressing.

Taxing issues

Every year we, along with most other businesses have to update the tables on which the tax and national insurance contributons of our staff are based.

With posh systems such as Sage, they send you the figures as an automatic update (accompanied by a huge invoice to allow them to fund arts centres in Gateshead) but since I wrote our system myself the updates have to be entered manually. This is fine for pay adjustment tables since weeks 2 - 52 are multiples of week 1, but with the other tax calculation tables I have to enter 52 figures x 3 tables.

Then came the budget which means I have to change all the figures before May 17th.

And now “Chancellor Alistair Darling has announced changes to the personal allowance in a bid to defuse the 10p tax row”

Should we mention the word PANIC?
All of this means that we have to change the figures again in September.

Meanwhile, there’s been progress on my (now reconstructed) finger. The physiotherapist was pleased with the improvement in the past week and the consultant has said he doesn’t need to see me again. It still has limited movement but given time it should return to near normal.

Multiplexing

We tried combining the roles of barperson and waitress tonight. The bar’s quiet on Monday. The restaurant’s quiet on Monday. What could possibly go wrong?

We had one guest - no wait 8 people just turned up - sorry, make that 10… So…

8 for dinner. Went OK, but if the bar had been busy there would have been problems. We’ll need to give it a week or two to see if this is going to work or not. If it doesn’t we’ll need to do a rethink.

The wounded finger is almost usable again and I have celebrated this occasion by putting my back out. Off to Embra to be poked, prodded and crunched by my osteopath. On the mend but another thing to add to the long list of Things I Could Do Without.

Old technology

Miss Frances shows an interest in telephony here. Waggling the cable about and chewing it were both popular entertainments for her when she wasn’t getting her teeth (well, gums) into a good book.

This phone will be cordless before long if this continues.

Pinky. Not so perky

To the hospital this morning to have the k-wire removed. I wasn’t expecting the removal to be particularly sophisticated, but a giant set of pliers and a good deal of tugging was a surprise nonethless. The finger is revealed in all its gory - oops glory, but is not really suitable for public viewing. There is a slight infection for which I’m on antibiotics and the joint is extremely stiff, though the consultant expressed surprise that I could move it all. So no dinners for another week. We should be up and running for the Jed sevens next Saturday.