The Hodge Blog

It’ll be real quick scratchings today as not a huge amount happened yesterday, barring the disaster that is uk2.net. For months we have been planning a DNS switch of our site at work to get ownership under the UK Company. On the exact day, at the exact time they asked us to make the switch, their servers that push these things out to the internet screwed up and we were lost. No web, no email, nothing! It took some swift action to switch these elsewhere to get it back up even by now. Their support was useless! Lots of we’re sorry and we’re trying our best to get it done but that did not return the revenue to the cash tin! It’s just so amazing that despite all our best planning these things just seem to dog us. We are on the lookout today for that old satellite to fall from space right onto our warehouse!

Out last night with the monthly lunch club. This time it was back to good old faithful Great Moghul in Eastleigh. It was pretty good fun but as usual by the end of the evening, I was shattered. So much so I got home, laid on my new beautiful wood floor in the study and went to sleep! Jo had to awake me from my slumbers, classic. I do love that floor just need to get the other three done too. This weekend, I feel it in my water!

It appears there maybe no one out this Friday. I will be scouring all friends to see if that really is true, but if it is, horror of horrors, I may have to stay in. If I do of course, the floor will definitely get done.

On this day in history and last year… (It was brief last year too)

Weather = It’s decidedly warmer both indoors and out

Mood meter = It’s the weekend come what may

Really frustrated how this week is mapping out as nothing is getting done here. Out again last night at the Lemon Sole. It’s a lovely fish restaurant but expensive for what it is and as I am also out tonight, it is another two nights with just 6 rows of planks on the floor. I am still aiming for the dining room to be done by the end of Monday evening (that’s the floor down, not necessarily the trim), which I am beginning to think will be at least one weekend day from dawn to late! Between Jo and I we have prepared the tongues on the current boards for the new ones by scraping excess adhesive from them now they are set. That’s a tedious job, taking over an hour, but one that needs to be done so the boards butt up correctly.

It suddenly, in mid-march, got very cold in Poorsmouth yesterday. In fact it is –9… points that it as they finally became the first club in the Premier League to be docked points for going into administration. That will relegate them, I am sure, but I am still hoping they will be relegated ‘properly’, on the pitch, as like their entire season they will be sure to squirm and whinge about it. It’s honestly been a farce and for sure, the Premier League will be glad when they are gone and the responsibility of the Football League.

On this day in history and last year… (Oh dear, there wasn’t one!)

Weather = It’s warmer, but mistier, hope the rain doesn’t come!

Mood meter = Where’s the weekend?

That’s the season definitely over as Saints slumped to a 1-0 home defeat to Swindon. I don’t think we played particularly badly, they just harried and fought and then, for the last 20 minutes with 10 men parked the bus in front of goal and managed to hold on. I would say the chances of us reaching the play-offs this season are now over. Not that they were really on for the last few weeks.

Being at footy got next to nothing done on the house. I did manage to caulk the tops of the skirting and architrave so that room is now completely finished, but no more planks on the floor.

Having some very interesting emails with both Elka. The adhesive manufacturer, and Carpenters of York who sold it me over it’s advertised coverage. The Technical Manager from Elka appears to be just rude and defending his position strongly as below.

Hi Nick,
Please contact me directly on xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx – it is a tested and proven fact that the trowel supplied in conjunction with the adhesive supplied covers the M2 stipulated.
It is far easier in this instance to communicate in person than over email

John at Carpenter’s is a little more explanatory and at least gives some things to look at to improve it but both are saying that it “it is what it is” and not offering solutions or compensation (short of free shipping on more glue!).

Hi Nick
Having looked back at your order, the adhesive calculated out to be correct
based on the area you were covering, however it is only a guide and as you
have experienced the glue may not cover precisely the square meterage due to elasticity and working times.
Can I ask if the glue is still in date, as you had this delivered back in
August last year, and I was just wondering if there were any expiry dates on
the foils.  Usually if sealed they are ok to use.  You could try a smaller
toothed trowel to that one supplied, however a good coverage is needed to
make a good bond between the epoxy resin and the board, so if you need more glue we would recommend buying possibly one of the Rewmar MS polymer 12kg foils to give you some extra coverage to work with. We will do free delivery on this for you if you feel you need it.
Best regards
John

It looks like you just suffer it at the huge cost of a replacement tub. I think some of this is covered up by the fact that most fittings are 10 sq metres or so so maybe you can just about scrape that out of one tub (14sq/m worth) and you just accept it. For me it’s added £600 to the cost of the project.

On this day in history and last year…

Weather = The weather is on the turn to wet I feel.

Mood meter = It’s mid week and no chance to get more wood down.

The most exciting stuff going on here is obviously the floor in the dining room. It’s not going so well as the study did, not least for the fact it is around three times longer in each ‘run’, it is obviously not possible to finish the room in one go and probably the support of Steve is not here.

One thing I have started to notice is that these are not engineered boards which would be completely uniform in dimension, flatness, etc. These natural solid oak boards definitely have vagrancies. The worst of these is a fraction of a millimetre variant in width of some boards resulting in the joint protruding from the next board. When the next board goes in it fits snuggly one side of the join and leaves a gap the other. This only takes a small touch with sandpaper on the join and you’re away again.

Learned last night that it is also worth taking the time to make sure there is no adhesive extending beyond the last ‘bed board row’ (That’s not a technical term, it’s just the last row before bed time!). I didn’t on Sunday night, so it took about an hour last night to scrape away the excess adhesive from the tongue, allowing the boards on the next row to fit all the way in. Anyhow the result, a target of six rows from me and five rows from Steve (I was very over-confident as usual). The actual number….four! However, now I’ve learned the ‘tricks’ and if I could get home a little earlier, i think six could be realistic. That should see us most of the way across the room in five more evenings. The snag there is that we don’t have another one this week. It is football this evening, We, or I are out Wednesday and Thursday and Friday….well, Friday is Friday Maybe I should switch it for Saturday???? I think, the weekend days are about 2 evenings in length, so maybe it’ll be next Monday or Tuesday that we’ll be done with the dining room and can move into the hall and living room, in that order.

Heard from Richard last night that baby Olivia had been poorly over the last few days with a bad infection. Poor thing had to go through two lumber punctures and was initially being treated on ‘worse case scenario’ as Meningitis. Fortunately, she responded to the drugs and it seemed not to be and mother and baby left hospital on Sunday. Thankful for that indeed!

Poorsmouth got thrashed by Liverpool 4-1 last night and today they are back in court to officially enter administration. That will see them slapped with a nine-point deduction although it appears that will not be contributory in their relegation

On this day in history and last year…

Weather = It’s cold but very sunny, not how it shows here?

Mood meter = Monday over and good news about Olivia.

Best bit about the weekend was that I have got some of the floor down. I say ‘I’ loosely as Steve was a major part in the success of the study which is now done and looking great. He arrived about 11am and we were soon laying out the first planks to see how it would lay along the first wall. I was the troweller of adhesive and Steve controlled the cutting of any planks. By the time I left for football at around 1:45pm it was about 2/3rds done and when I returned it was finished with just the skirting and architrave to fit which we did on Sunday. Job done. I was so enthused I have even gone on and laid just over two rows in the dining room ready to progress at what I hope will be speed tonight. It’s had a few packs of wood stood on it since yesterday morning, so should be good and solid tonight and a good platform to push the next rows against.

My only concern is the amount of adhesive it is using. The pack says 1kg per square metre. I reckon we are using it at nearly double that rate. That is despite trowelling the stuff three or four times in different directions and then again just before laying a plank. At this rate I estimate we will need at least another six tubs at £80 a tub. A cool £480! Still I suppose if it stays down and works, it’ll be worth the additional cost.

Just to ensure a perfect lay too, we are applying a small bead of PVA glue along the groove. It should stay very flat and fixed certainly.

The only other thing I had time for over the weekend was football. We were playing Leeds who are in second position in the league. Honestly, we thrashed them 1-0. That sounds really strange but we should have been three or four up by half time and maybe added one in the second half. I think all told they had one shot on target. Talk about having a side in your pocket. The crowd was the third largest in the whole of Saturday’s football at 30,700. Fantastic for the third-tier. The win was even sweeter as the referee, Phillip Walton, recently officiating in the premier league, was just plain awful. I would think his demise may well be as spectacular as ours and see him dropping down the leagues quite swiftly.

It was Mothering Sunday too. Fortunately I am now in a  position to sit back and let the girls do their thing. In fact with sticky chicken for tea, cooked by Lindsay, I just reaped the benefits.

Today is Simon, Emma’s boyfriends nineteenth birthday. Happy Birthday Simon.

On this day in history and last year…

Weather = Where, oh where is spring?

Mood meter = Oh dear, it’s Monday!

The weekend can’t come fast enough. This week seems to have dragged. Fortunately the floor sealant went off and has dried to a hard shell although there are some patches where it seems to have soaked in more than others. I am tempted to get the living room carpet up over the weekend and get the sealant down on that so that I can put some second coats on the other floors to use up all the sealant. We’ll see.

Looks like the study wood is going down in the morning. That too will give me some work in putting up the skirting and architrave, but it’ll be another room done I am now in a hurry to get the wood floor down. Mainly so we can then get the majority of furniture in place and the kitchen will be clear to tile. I’m starting to realise if each area takes a week, I still have 7 weeks to go. That will only then leave the kitchen cupboard and boiler room to decorate. I reckon 10 weeks in total. So the house warming will be at the end of May then

Saints have sold all their tickets for Saturday’s game against Leeds and the JPT at Wembley. in total that over 76,000 tickets in two games. Seems a little strange that Wembley can’t sell more with Carlisle only taking 25,000?

On this day in history and last year…

Weather = It was warmer and wetter last year

Mood meter = It’s the weekend.

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