"Even a stopped clock ..."

"...gives the right time twice a day"

I came home to see this new clock in the hallway. It is, I have been told, to go up in the hall somewhere and will mean the kids won't ever be late getting out of the house again. (That reminds me, this struck a chord when I saw it at Christmas).

In other news, you may recall the hot water issue which happened some weeks ago. Basically the hot water is warm not hot. You may have assumed that, like normal people, we would have just called the plumber and paid some ridiculous amount to have it fixed. But no, we have been limping along with me wondering what was wrong. Its not been too bad as I realised we could get hottish water if I ran the cold tap. Any way I fixed it tonight!

The boring bit - I couldn't work out what was wrong but had ruled a few things out. Then I found a post on diynot.com which said try this - turn off the water feed to the boiler, meaning no hot water will flow, and try your taps. I did this and low and behold cold water flowed out of the hot kitchen tap! This meant cold water was somehow getting into the hot water pipes. This is usually at a mixer and the culprit I found was the shower. A small piece of solder had trapped in the non return valve on the hot inlet meaning cold water could flow into it. Super hot steamy water again. Result!

I think I have saved, lets say, several hundred pounds in plumber fees which I think should go to my camera fund :)