The ground floor of my block of flats is owned by an old person’s Housing Association. I thought this would mean quiet neighbours, but I was mistaken. The lady below has always had the occasional yelling session with her relatives, but in the last couple of weeks it’s gone nuts. There’ve been two doorstep screaming matches, one at 0100 and one at 0200, and both eventually moved inside to directly beneath my bedroom. It’s annoying, but I try to be liberal about it - I don’t know what’s going on in their lives, after all, and for all I know she could be ill in some way.

Then this evening things went mental. I was sitting at my desk, blogging away, when hysterical screaming started coming down the street. There’s a pub at the end of my road so you get the odd bit of shouting, but this time it stopped at my building. And got louder and louder. There were a group of teenagers, but the actually-quite-astonishing amount of noise was coming from one girl, with the others trying (unsuccessfully) to calm her down. It was bad enough that I was pretty worried for a while - I’ve never seen (or, heard) anyone quite so upset. This was coupled with running around the building, banging on the doors and windows, obviously trying to get the attention of the lady below.

I figured this was enough that I might need to get involved. I had no idea what I’d do, and didn’t much fancy squaring up against f-ing-and-blinding teenage lads, even if they seemed to be on my side, but I was worried the other (perfectly quiet) elderly people downstairs might come out. Or that this girl might get in downstairs, and who knows what would happen. So I found shoes / keys etc. and tried to figure out what was going on.

The banging stopped, and the histrionics increased. Really, I don’t think I could get that loud if I wanted to. I couldn’t make out most of the words, but she was clearly in some serious distress. I couldn’t see the main group, but I saw a few of the surrounding kids give up and leave, which didn’t help. The houses across the street were all taking an interest, and I heard an adult voice trying to calm the situation down. It didn’t work, and I didn’t hear her again. Eventually a door across the street opened and a guy stormed over the road, threatening to call the police. That had an immediate effect, and a minute later she was let in downstairs. The voices got calm pretty quickly, and it’s been quiet ever since. I’m hoping that’ll mark the end of whatever’s been going on. I’m still shocked at the noise coming from this girl, and I wonder if there’s a problem there.

I’m a bit inexperienced here. Stratford’s a fairly quiet town and I’ve never lived in a busy residential area - is this bizarre, or just something teenagers sometimes do?

I do like having a first-floor flat, though. All this stuff can go on below and I’m protected enough that it doesn’t affect me such that I need to worry. But I do feel for the others downstairs, and I wonder whether there’ll be repurcussions. I wouldn’t complain unless this went on for a lot longer, but I wouldn’t blame the older residents for saying something. I wonder if the Housing Assocation would do anything.

I’m getting frequent broadband disconnections - more time offline than on, actually - and the phone line is crackly. I reported the fault via BT’s website and requested SMS updates. I wonder whether this is as efficient as actually calling them up…Update: they just called me back, so I guess it is.

A Giant Wasp of Pointy Death tried to kill me. Really.

I received an email warning saying 90% of my webhosting space has been used. This amounts to 900mb. I have no clue how this is possible. Email accounts are empty, my website takes up maybe 80mb, I can’t imagine the mysql database is that big. Confused.

My flat is lovely, but some of the previous occupant’s upgrades were, shall we say, shoddy at best. I’m having major work done on the bathroom this week, and I had a call this morning to say it would start a day earlier than expected. I wasn’t completely prepared so had to dash around getting everything sorted, but it went well. I was very impressed with the quality of the workmanship - they were very fast and even swept up before leaving. At one point they needed to move a gas pipe, and managed to get a Corgi registered engineer out within half an hour. Blimey. They’ll be back early tomorrow morning to fit a new shower, install an extractor fan, and various other jobs that have needed doing since I moved in. It’ll be great once it’s all finished.

I’m having a bunch of work done on my bathroom, including a new shower. The guys arrived maybe forty minutes ago, and the current shower is already completely removed. The sound of smashing tiles is currently drifting into the lounge. That happened fast.

I live in a block of flats owned by an old-people’s housing association, and the ground floor is reserved for the disabled / elderly. One I’ve chatted to a little, one is housebound and I only see rarely, and one is always coming and going but gives me are-you-crazy looks whenever I nod a hello here or on the street, so I haven’t spoken to her at all. Earlier this week I bumped into the latter while taking the rubbish out, and held the door open as she moved some objects around. She suddenly started talking, telling me how she helps out the partially-sighted lady who lives along the corridor, and in the process indicated what I thought was her flat.

I don’t think she lives here at all. This would explain the strange looks. It’s only taken me 18 months to realise. Ahem.

It is working! Hooray for the man!

The heating problem itself turned out to be an easy one - the control knob wasn’t turned properly. I’d thought that yesterday, but every time I tried turning it the pilot went out. I’m unclear on whether this was muppetry on my part or some other problem, but it’s working now. However, he discovered a couple of other problems that require replacement parts, so will be back before long. The ‘overheat stat’ was broken, and this coupled with a leak via a broken valve means the pressure is too high in the rest of the boiler, which unfortunately he can’t release without installing some kind of release system into a pipe, and…I lost it there, but he seems to know what he’s doing.

Eventually the unit will conk out altogether - maybe another two years, he says - but I’m just happy it’s working for the moment. No need for my old-man blanket any more

I may soon have to get into bed, turn on the electric blanket, and read my book (Fahrenheit 451, ironically).

The British Gas man is due between 1200 and 1800. I’m hoping it’s nearer the former. Brrrrrrrrr.

Other than an unfortunate and spectacular attempt to climb a snowy bank this afternoon, today was going fine until the early evening. I was sitting at my desk when I realised I was colder than normal, and further investigation revealed the boiler’s pilot light had gone out. I re-lit it, but twenty minutes later was no warmer. The boiler was still alight and giving every appearance of running as normal, but wouldn’t accept any kind of bribe to produce hot water. Obviously it was the perfect day for a central heating breakdown…A British Gas engineer is booked for tomorrow afternoon, but I’ve had to evacuate to my parents’ for the night - it’s just too cold at home. I was nervous about the drive over, but happily the main roads were clear (and pleasantly free of traffic) and the snow hadn’t had a chance to freeze yet. Hopefully the boiler will be easily fixable!

Back to the non-Christmassy theme, then. Looks boring, doesn’t it? I’ll have to try and spice it up a little.

I’m back at home now after nine days at my parents’ house. It occurred to me in the middle of last week that nobody has any contact details for me, so the flat could have been hit by a custard ICBM and I’d have been clueless. Given that something has gone wrong the last few times I’ve been away I was a little nervous about returning, and when I opened the door to hear voices I was somewhat startled. Thankfully I can pretty much survey the entire flat from the front door, so I confirmed I was alone before the automatic ninja defence moves kicked in. A power cut had turned on the freeview box and speakers, so goodness knows how long they’d been chatting away to themselves. I later discovered that the main radiator’s thermometer has devolved to the binary settings of ‘hotter than the sun’ or ‘off’. It took me a while to realise as I was cooking and tidying up, and the flat was rather warm for a while.

My head’s still spinning from the heat of said radiator and I’m concerned I’m not making sense, so here are a few posts I’ve enjoyed recently:

• Bad Astronomy on the real meaning of ‘day’ and ‘year’ - I didn’t know about ‘tropical years’.
• Tom Hamilton on the Daily Mail and the BNP.
• The Partially Clips webcomic, via Pootergeek.
• A discussion of what constitutes the Worst Argument Ever, which inevitably quotes Intelligent Design advocates, including the brain-busting:

  Secondly, even if your thesis were accurate at least it is verifiable. When one dies, he returns to dirt. I have yet to hear of one dieing and returning to a monkey.

• Via Mur (who now has a posse), The Evil Monkey Guide to Creative Writing:

  For all of these reasons and more, writing is perilous work. It is more deadly than special ops. It is more boring than selling insurance. It is more exhilarating than jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. You may die from writing, but more probably you will be disappointed. That is okay, too. Disappointment, as we all know, builds character.

Right. Washing up or Torchwood? Torchwood, obviously. Oh, all right then.

Last year I bought a demure little Christmas tree for my flat. It fitted the table well, and sat just in front of the window without bothering anybody. I planned to get something similar this year.

Um. They didn’t have any.

Is big. It’s not all that clear on the photo, but it spills over the sides rather a lot. If you try to watch tv from one side of the sofa you get a face full of bauble. On the upside, it’s visible from the street
I also managed to break a set of lights. They flared and went out after I turned the plug on, despite working fine before. I thought the point of parallel cables was for that not to happen? I’m sure that was what they told me in GCSE physics…

Ben and I spent the entire of yesterday taking apart, re-sealing and reassembling my shower, which desperately needed doing. The previous job had been done so well that at one point Ben detached one corner and pulled a string of sealant free of two sides of the shower in one go. There was also a massive gaping hole leading straight through to the floorboards. I got to use the sealant gun, which was fun Many thanks to Ben for giving up his time! We didn’t finish until very late, at which point it was a dash to the fish-and-chip shop before he had to drive back to Oxford.

As a result I didn’t manage to write anything, but that’s ok because today is officially designated NaNo Catchup Day. I’m at 14,000 words and should be at 20,000, so I don’t care how bad it is, I’m going to get as much written as possible this afternoon. Back later, if I’m not too tired

Halfway to St. Annes I discovered that my tax disc was a month out of date. I hadn’t received the reminder form, but I really should have noticed sooner. The thing that really worried me, though, was that I also couldn’t remember receiving anything about insurance. I bought the car thirteen months ago and would have insured it at the same time as it was taxed…I figured the tax could wait a couple of days until I got home, but the insurance was another matter. I couldn’t even remember which of three possible companies the insurance was with. I decided to buy another six months just in case - there’s normally a 14-day cancellation period - and my very patient sister helped me out over the phone. She had the clever idea of logging into confused.com with my details, and found a previously saved quote from this June. I sold my previous car in June 2005, and maybe I’d bought the insurance just before, or something. Based on this and the fact I’d had no reminders I decided it was more likely to be ok, but drove the 2.5hr M6 journey very nervous and overly cautious, just in case. It turned out that I had indeed renewed the insurance back in June, but I wish I’d remembered that on Friday!

I arrived home at 0100 last night to find a note saying there was a leak from my flat into the rooms below, and first thing this morning there was a call from the housing association. I figured it was the shower as there’s been a small puddle appearing next to the base recently, and I hadn’t gotten around to having it checked out yet. However, I visited the lady downstairs and found the leak had abruptly started last Thursday, and wasn’t actually underneath the shower. I checked out my boiler cupboard and found the floor drenched. For unknown reasons the previous occupier blanked off one of the pipes with a tap instead of a cap, and it must have started leaking late last week. Really unlucky, as I’m sure I’d have noticed if I’d been around. The plumbers are coming around this afternoon to fix the tap and take a look at the shower, but for now the problem’s been solved by a bowl.

That sorted, I applied for car tax online. It’s possible without the reminder form as long as you have the registration certificate, and they also automatically check the details against MOT and insurance databases, which is cool. It did warn me that I’d committed an offence by going a month without tax, so I’ll have to wait and see whether I’m fined. Hopefully not, although it would be perfectly reasonable of them to do so. The date is already marked in next year’s calendar - I’m not going through all that again!

Two weeks ago my boiler started making an awful grinding noise if left on for more than five minutes. It had also stopped providing hot water unless the central heating was on. I was worried. The man who serviced it at christmas said it hadn’t been the best boiler when it was installed 13 years ago, and it had an extensive callout history just with British Gas. They gave me a proper quote for a replacement, but at £2000 it was way more than I could afford, and it still is.

This lunchtime I finally called BG - I’m on one of their service plans - and they said somebody would be with me this afternoon. Ten minutes ago they turned up, turned a screw to increase the water pressure, which was apparently non-existent - and now everything works again! They were here for five minutes, and it didn’t cost me a thing.

Phew.

There’s scaffolding up all around my building (they’re replacing the widgets with styroplasty, or something) and the boards are at window level on both sides of the flat. So I have legs walking back and forth continually. This feels quite weird, it being a first floor flat and all. I wonder whether I should make cups of tea and pass them out of the windows, or something…

Now it looks like they’re starting to do something to my window. I’ll just sit here and try not to look too weird.

Dum de dum.

Maybe I’ll just go out.