The Hodge Blog

Last night was pretty funny. I am attacking my hoodoo of the wood floor. The first part is to get some sealant down on the floor to ensure the moisture content in the floor remains stable apparently. (Below are the before and after in the study)

The stuff I used is a Bona adhesive product in a 2-part tin. I had no idea what it would be like and it clearly said on the tin to get it on in 20 minutes and as I’ve said a few times it’s about £80 a tin. I needn’t have worried too much. I punctured the top tin so the hardener could drop into the epoxy and mixed it well. The consistency was like warm honey. Pretty runny but very sticky. Certainly application with a roller was fine, although it said can be applied with paintbrush or trowel. Not sure how you could do it with a trowel it was that runny. Anyhow, we used two tins to coat the study, hall and dining room.

After that we had to place a couple of stepping stones from the living room to the stairs for everyone to get to bed…that was the funny bit. Heating had to stay on overnight to keep the stuff drying. This morning it is dry but still pretty sticky, so hopefully by the time everyone gets home it will have gone off or we’ll be on tile adhesive buckets again.

Emma’s hair is due to drop out soon. I lost my job as hair dyer to Lindsay and Natasha at various points. She had decided on Tuesday night she wanted to go back to blonde. After two applications it was blonde on top but at the extremities was very orange. I don’t think she’s ever been so pleased to be working at McDonalds and having to wear a hat! Last night they tried again with a slightly different one and it looks OK, but there is still time for it to fall out, she’s applied that much bleach to it!

The sofas for the bottom lounge arrived. It’s amazing how with they get put straight away by Jo and Lindsay. If they were TVs or similar, they’d still be there in a week or two. Amazing how differently men and women think?

On this day in history and last year…

Weather = That’s a benign day?

Mood  meter = Nearing the end of the week and got the floor started.

At last, the tiles are down in the bottom bathroom and grouted, although I seem to have missed the right feed pipe from the towel rail. Not sure how that happened but I left it on the ‘honey do’ list for Jo along with a quick scrub of the floor to take away the grittiness of the grout residue. I’ve decided tiling is a messy, finicky job that I just wouldn’t want to be doing. Still just have to run a clear mastic bead around the base of the skirting, toilet,bath and cabinet and…The bottom end is finished! Well, barring the wood for the mantle piece. Jeez, there’s always a ‘barring’. Still, it means we have a place of comfort for any visitors we may get. That means there will now be a race to see who is the inaugural overnighters. Mind you, it could of course be me The time this has taken I am now dreading the kitchen, conservatory and breakfast room, all of which blend into one and is a huge area. I must plan it a bit better me thinks so that there aren’t so many cuts.

This all means we are on to the wooden floor next. I can’t get out of it any longer. The sealant is first, maybe as soon as tonight. Even the mixing of that is complicated with a strange two-part tin that has to have one part mixed with the other. It then says apply with roller, paintbrush or spreader. Just what consistency is this stuff? That’s another thing you see, once I get the tin open and it starts setting, will I have the implements to get it on? Probably worrying unnecessarily but this stuff is £80 a tin and says once applied it can only be removed with abrasion…nice!

Poorsmouth managed to lose in the premier league last night, cementing their place at the bottom of the league, even without the 9-point deduction the Premier League seem reticent to apply. They are back in court on Monday and frankly, with all the shenanigans surrounding them at the minute, I am beginning to think they should be harshly dealt with. That’s a hardening of my attitude, but when you see Chester, bottom of the conference in a completely different sphere to Poorsmouth disbanded, it appears one rule for one and another for another. They, the FA and the Premier League should hang their heads in shame frankly. I know it happened to us just a year ago, but this farce has been going on for a year and the scale is bigger than anything we faced and, at least the administrator told everyone just how bad it was. This one seems to be doing nothing after nearly two weeks…shambolic.

On this day in history and last year… (exciting stuff was starting to happen with the house!)

Weather = I need spring today,but it’s going to rain.

Mood meter = It’s mid week and pretty flat

Finally got the floor tiles laid in the bottom bathroom, although that took through until 10:15pm. It is staggering that you can lay dozens of whole tiles in that time, maybe make 15 cuts, but when it comes to cutting around the base of the toilet pan and soil pipe, it takes forever. Literally, it was the floor area equivalent of two tiles! They had to be cut in half first and then shaped to fit which requires dozens of cuts through to the mark and then snap them off and trim to shape. It went well but is like sculpture. There has to be an easier way.

During the tiling I have managed to go through the switches of two cutting machines now. Definitely a fault with the machine as everything else seems to stand up nicely.

Just the grout to put down tonight and then…it will be the floor sealant to go down and Steve is saying he may be able to get here on Saturday to do the study. I can then hopefully get a start on the dining room and we can start to spread out again.

Got Monday out of the way, which is always nice. Seems a long while ago that I was trudging the halls in Germany, but the thought crossed me yesterday that it was only actually a week ago!

Got our first egg this day last year. Not sure how many we’ve had since then, but the battered old hens that replaced the dog-savaged ones have suddenly come to life. Where we were getting one a day if we were lucky from all five of them, we are now getting four pretty regularly and five on a day last week…great!

On this day in history and last year…

Weather = That’s pretty benign

Mood meter = Monday’s out the way.

Wow, it’s Monday again. How did that happen? Pretty quiet here as Jo is off today, Lindsay is at home and Emma is not starting work until later. At least I have the car which means I can set off a little later too.

The weekend was another of diversions and lack of material. The tiling is done in the bottom bathroom barring two tiles and the grouting. The two tiles I will definitely fit tonight and maybe grout all but them. The diversions were caused by having an hour here and an hour there after two late nights on Friday and Saturday. You know how it is? Just got an hour, so I’ll not cut those last two tiles around the toilet base, I’ll stick some pictures up instead. So that was how it was. I had a ton more jobs in my head like having a bonfire, getting the old fridge out in the garage and getting the damn sealant on the concrete floors. Did none!

I did get a couple of new dusk-to-dawn lights up on the garage piers. That involved running electrics from the consumer unit, to a switch, which I had in stock for hells sake! Then running two cables into the first one and then one of those cables onto the second. I switched them on and they worked first time, which was really good, as the light was all but gone on Sunday evening. A little adjustment and they will be on from dusk every night, though to dawn with no interference. Fortunately, they are also low energy so whilst we now have some light, we are not too out of pocket and neither is nature.

Saints got beaten away from home at Tranmere on Saturday. Not sure what it is with us and lower teams? We batter top of the table sides but that is now Brighton, Wycombe and Tranmere, all lower table who we have lost to this season. Worse still, Poorsmouth won against Birmingham in the FA Cup and now get a trip to Wembley for the semi-final. Not that the semi-final should be played there, but like Poorsmouth, they need the cash. I now just have to pray they get beaten there which will be probably more heart-breaking than getting beaten Saturday!

Most importantly in Pymmies life, Bristol Rovers won away from home against Swindon Town on the weekend. Oh, and he and Allison became a Grandparents again. Seriously, their Daughter Kate had a girl on Saturday evening at 11:40pm, weighing 7lb 7oz and named Olivia May. All appears to be going well. Congratulations to all.

Lastly, it’s niece Ellie’s Birthday today. She must be 15 going on 25, or something like that? Sam?

On this day in history and last year…

Weather = Brrrrrrrrr!

Mood meter = It is Monday after all

Seems I am getting too diverted recently with tasks here and I now enter the weekend with nothing further done on the tiles. It’s the usual excitement I get with gadgets, but generally none of that goes smoothly.

Last night I thought I would quickly get a new ‘N+’ wireless modem/router. One that would enable me to plug in some extra storage for films, pictures, etc and then, as it came with a usb adapter, plug that in either the Blu-Ray or TV, both of which are internet enabled and pow! we’d have streaming on tap. Obviously, I was wrong and I suspect it will take at least the same again to get that all up and running and make the house totally ‘capable’! That took virtually all evening so there was no time for anything else.

That means, after I have attended John the Jock’s party tonight, which will be very late, I will have to do the tile tomorrow morning with a hangover. No wonder I don’t post on a Saturday.

No home football this weekend, so there will be no disruption there, although i am out with Stuart on Saturday night again, but will try and keep that fairly early.

Anyhow, at least the weekend is here, Jo is off today and Monday using up last year’s Holiday allocation, so it appears to be just me off to work this morning on a cold but beautifully sunny Friday

See you all Monday

On this day in history and last year…

Weather = That’s cold, but very sunny

Mood meter = It is the weekend, even though last night was soooooo frustrating.

After a few months of having no display on my laptop and using a fixed on in the office, Dell came out yesterday and fixed the motherboard and LCD screen, so I am now mobile again and able to type this on the train. I feel liberated! It was fixed at the second time of asking as they had fitted the same on Monday, but there must have been some kind of short circuit on the motherboard as it just wouldn’t power up.

Managed to get some of the TV stuff done last night. The cinema system is ‘in’ the living room, although with the floor yet to do it’s not routed in any way other than over the old carpet. We quickly tried the Blu-Ray with our copy of Casino Royale and the sound was great. It even has a radio tuner for FM which, with one of those wire type antennas makes a surprisingly good and clear sound too.

Managed to get the unit up in the games room too. That involved witting a bracket to the wall, but it is now up, tuned in and ready to go. the sound is a little ‘thin’, so I may add a small cinema surround system to it and see how that sounds?

That of course meant that no further progress was made on the tiling, so that is tonight’s job. if I can get the majority of the cuts down I’ll be happy for sure. Not sure that will include around the toilet base as that will take a little more intricate cutting. If I did get that done though it would be superb as that would just leave the grouting which is about a 30 minute job.

After my rant of yesterday about the barcode on the box of the cinema system. I went to the Curry’s store in Hedge End. They had stock of the same model, although over £100 more. There were four boxes and all the barcode detail needed for the LoveFilm promotion were identical, so a quick photo from the camera and the claim was in. I have the promo code and registered fine, so how tough was that. I sense the people at Samsung just couldn’t be bothered. If your having the same issue, here’s the barcode! (Click to enlarge)

On this day in history and last year…

Weather =
mood meter = The weekend is getting closer.

Football has to take the headlines today. Set off to St Mary’s last night expecting a 1-1 draw, or maybe a 2-1 win at best as we set up against high-flying Huddersfield who were unbeaten since December and now sitting in 6th place in the league. I certainly did not see a 5-0 thumping coming on. Two 5 goal routs in two consecutive games and the way we did it the result was never in doubt, only the number of goals we would get. I really thought at one point we would get seven or eight.

I really can’t wait until Saturday. We are away to Tranmere Rovers who must be ploughing their pitch, hoping, as we have shown in the past, we cannot perform on a pudding of a pitch! After that we have promotion chasing Leeds United at home and that too will be tough.

More TVs arrived yesterday in the form of a 19” one for the kitchen and a 23” one for the games room. I have a bracket for the latter, but will need to get one for the smaller unit. I cannot believe how much I suddenly have to do with no time to do it.

<rant>

Have a small rant to get off my chest this morning with Samsung. The cinema system I bought has an offer with lovefilm.com for 6 months. The claim form on their web site requires the barcode from the box. Mine is scrubbed off and will they take the serial number, or anything else? No! I called them to see what could be done. The answer, sent the whole unit back and get another one with a barcode on the box! ridiculous!

</rant>

On this day in history and last year…

Weather =

Mood meter = What a win!

OK, up and about at normal time. Quite a bit has gone on since I last posted properly on Friday.

Saturday saw the usual chicken clear out first thing and I just find it really funny that ruby is convinced she is a chicken, even taking to eating their pellet food which frankly must be pretty disgusting! I managed to get this picture on my phone which sort of sums it up. On the chicken front, production has really leapt over the last few weeks climbing steadily from the five birds until we often get three or four a day…now to find the one not laying…

Got what seemed to be very little done on the weekend with the house. I think that was mainly due to Saturday afternoon giving way to Saints – v – Walsall and Sunday afternoon giving way to the trip out to Cologne. The intention was to get the bottom bathroom floor tiling finished but, with the breaks to date (Tuesday), we have only managed to get some of the cuts done and they are not even stuck down. Much of that too was caused by the feet of the towel rail, which is fixed to the floor. Cutting around them proved impossible, so I have had to raise it by around 10mm and will run the tiles underneath. That was a pretty intricate plumbing job which took for ages. Won’t be able to do that tonight, as there is more footy, but the target now should be to not have to finish it at the weekend, so I have a couple more nights. To placate my feeling of uselessness, I did fit the window pane in the middle bedroom and hang a few pictures and the remaining curtain tie-backs!

Saints gad a great win against Walsall. Going behind after just 3 minutes, I was convinced we would turn it around and we did, in 5-1 emphatic style! Tonight we play high-flying Huddersfield Town. Let’s hope for a similar outcome.

Left Sunday afternoon for Cologne. Flew locally from Southampton to Dusseldorf, stayed overnight there, in the Sheraton, which you would think would have hot water in the morning! From there it was on to the biennial Tool Fair in Cologne, about a 40 minute train ride which too was disrupted as there were 60 mile an hour winds the night before in the area and the trains were shut down leaving everything and everyone in the wrong place. It also made for a pretty hairy descent into Dusseldorf with the pilot describing the weather as…”Well…horrendous”! Fun!

On this day in history and last year…

Weather = That’s a cold one.

Mod meter = Glad to be back to be honest.

I know you’ve all missed me today, although weekends go by the board as standard. Forgot to mention I was off to Cologne, via Dusseldorf. I’ve just got back in and it’s late, so normal service resumes tomorrow!

On this day in history and last year…

Weather = It’s cold and dark!

Mood meter = Tired

Today is the day that Poorsmouth finally take their just deserts and drop into administration. (For those of you living over the Atlantic, that’s the same as Chapter 11). They will now effectively be protected from their creditors while an appointed administrator examines the finances of the club and tries to sell it as a going concern. That is the same as happened to Southampton. Secured creditors will get their money, or the asset the debt was secured against first, (after the administrator’s fees!), followed by unsecured, including HMRC after that at ‘x’ in the £. It’s not a forgone conclusion that they will get a buyer, but with no guarantee the new (5th) owner will need to pick up the debts, it would be likely someone will help them out. That, from my angle is good as it will renew our ‘healthy’ rivalry and knowing how I felt last season, the fans will still have a club to support, which is good. I hope it serves as a lesson to football because frankly, they may have had success in the 2008 FA Cup, the biggest and best football club competition in the World for various reasons, not least everyone can take part, not just the elite, but it is now evident that they ‘bought’ the victory and today, it must seem very hollow indeed. The 9 point deduction they now get will see them in the Championship for sure next season and maybe only one season away from more derby games That is providing we get promoted and they don’t get relegated again. Hopefully, it means this comedy saga is nearing it’s end?

At home I was due to measure up and cut the tiles in the bottom bathroom, but that went by the board with the excitement of plumbing in the new fridge so we could use the filtered water and ice maker novelties that we now have! It was not the easiest of jobs, having to cut the water pipe in the cupboard in the kitchen, inserting an appliance tap and fitting the water filter, I still had to drill a hole in the wall for the tube to go through. In fact the tube is still a little short so the installation is only temporary and will be completed when I ‘skin’ that walk-in cupboard as the last internal job. The pipe is in fact about 2 ft short to go all around the wall but that too will be a relatively easy fix. It has cold water now and overnight we have a half-full ice bucket. We are surprised the dogs didn’t wake as the ice operation is not the quietest as the ice tray tips over with the sound of a servo motor, the ice drops into the bucket like stones into a bowl and the ice tray fills back up with the sound of a running tap. Still, once the bucket is full it will not happen so often. Have to call the supplier too as taking the protective film off last night we noticed a chip in the door which must have been done while they were fitting the unit through our front door when they had to remove the doors. We’ll see what happens there?

Have visitors in at work this afternoon and out with them this evening. They bare all the way from Australia and we will meet up again during my one day in Germany at the Cologne Fair on Monday. I fly to Dusseldorf on Sunday evening from Southampton and take a 40 minute train ride on Monday morning to the exhibition, flying back on Monday night.

Hope to get the tiles finished before the end of the weekend, but that may be a tough ask with footy on Saturday afternoon, but if I’m disciplined I could get the cuts done on Saturday morning/evening and grout before going to the airport on Sunday…we’ll see!

On this day in history and last year…

Weather =

Mood meter = It’s sort of the weekend, although I have visitors this evening, so no pub