My life in France

I noticed that the heating water pressure was a bit low, so decided to top it up. As I open the valve I knew something was amiss as nothing happened. The water pipes had frozen up. So what do you when this happens?, you get out your plumbers blow torch out, select the widest nozzle and gently heat the pipe up. This worked fine for all of 3 seconds. At the 4th second the pipe decided it would burst. And burst it did, directly at me. Unfortunately it was -6 outside and the mains water stop tap is down by the gate. I didn't realise ice could form that quickly on your face, hair & clothes. So I've had the day off work to fix the pipes (& defrost my face). Big mistake, as by lunch the pipes were fixed and I decided it would be a good idea to take the boiler apart whilst it's switched off and vacuum out the soot. I had just turned the vacuum cleaner off when I thought I could smell burning. Must be the chimney as the fire in the house was alight. I had just finished putting the boiler back together, when I realised the burning was coming from inside the boiler room. As it turns out the soot hadn't cooled down as much as I thought it had & the burning smell was coming from the vacuum cleaner full of hot soot. But on the bright side, running around with a burning vacuum cleaner did warm me up a bit....

Constant trips to the fridge and the shelf with all the christmas chocolates on.

Logging in daily on the pc to the radiotimes, tvguide, onthebox to make sure the you have the days viewing worked to run like clockwork.

And yet for some strange reason your wife and kids are not intrested in the same things, how can this be.

You have spent years together growing up & growing old, you think you know everything there is to know about them, yet when it comes to television programes none of you can agree on one program you all want to watch.

I never thought I would hear myself say thank god for playstations. Why is it better to play Grand Theft Auto when you could see an old table or vase the same as the one in the attic on Bargain Hunt I will never know. But at least their quite (ish).

I was watching the BBC news this morning, and a man from the AA was saying that with tomorrow morning being the first day back at work for many and the first day the car has been started all christmas, that many people will be having problems. He said "just call us thats what we're here for." Yeah right, I think most AA men will be looking forward to tomorrow about as much as I am. Unfortunately the AA doesn't visit this part of France. But on the up side, if the car won't start I am far enough away from the neighbours for them not to hear me swearing and slamming the car doors. If it's really cold tomorrow I might even try the Basil Fawlty approach and attack it with a branch.