Erieversible

So today the temperature hit 60F.  At least, that’s what my car showed at one stage today.  With the rain pouring down too I’m surprised there’s any snow left around, but there is.  Down in the basement the sump pump is working away.  Touch wood.  I can honestly say I’ve never known of a UK house having such an arrangement, so this is another fairly fundamental difference between the two countries.  I understand the concept of why such things exist (I think I do, anyway) but then a whole country, and one that is arguably just as wet as this part of the US, manages without the concept.  We’re back in the territory of why does the same car need servicing 2-4 times as often when it runs in the US compared to the UK.  Must be something in the air.  Or the water.

Meanwhile on the roof the startling news from yesterday is that, and I quote from the roofer’s paperwork, “House was roofed with absolutely no underlayment”.  At first that meant nothing, but I’ve very quickly come up to speed with the terminology and the technology involved.  I am busy gathering information before deciding what course of action (if any) to take.  Not something I wanted or expected to be dealing with at the moment

Never mind, the British are reknowned for their ability to talk about the weather, and there’s certainly plenty of scope there!

It seems my hearing is going.  I said, it seems my hearing is going.  Oh, never mind.

The company today gave me a baseline audiogram (hearing test) for their records.  It seems my hearing isn’t as good as I thought it was.  Some hearing loss in the upper frequencies.  However, those frequencies start where normal human noises end, so I can still hear voices, conversations, etc. perfectly well, it is just bats that are no longer part of my conversational repertoire.

I can’t remember ever had a hearing test before, so don’t know if there has actually been a loss of hearing in the upper frequencies or whether it has been like that for years.  I guess if the company ever does another one I’ll find out then if this is steady deterioration.  Probably age….

And on anther medical subject my wife was summoned to remove our 6-year old daughter from school as they believed she had some really infectious, killer disease.  We had thought it was just dry skin.  So, two hours later, a co-pay bill later, the verdict from the doctor was…dry skin.  I can understand the school erring on the side of caution but maybe there should be a scheme for at least partial recompense of the expense incurred due to their demands, otherwise where does it all end?

And to end the day we may have a significant issue with the roof on the house, but that’s probably an entry for tomorrow when further information has been gathered.

Today we made a paint decision for the dining room and also bought a dining table and chairs.  We’re not quite sure if the furniture will go with the paint (or vice versa) but should find out by the end of next week.  I suspect it will be easier to re-paint than to send the furniture back and try and find another set, but hopefully neither course of action will be necessary.

Apart from the dining room furniture we ordered a few other bits and pieces.  Suffice to say that by the end of next week the house should seem a little bit fuller.  Mind you, there are still empty rooms…

The event for today was the unseasonally high temperatures - the car registered 54 degrees at one stage.  It felt quite unnatural, and we’ll be almost glad to see temperatures get back to around freezing tomorrow.