Baustelle

A much used German word, literally translated as building works but doesn't restrict it to bricks & mortar. Those who have been on the autobahn will probably have seen the red triangular sign with the man struggling with his umbrella and underneath "Baustelle", in this case road works.

This week our electro/hydraulic gate at the entrance started playing up, responding irratically to the remote controls. So time to try and sort out why. As I have written often, electricity is not a strong point but worse still I have just a tiny inkling of knowledge, just enough to start messing around and no doubt making the problem ten times worse. It didn't help there was a strong wind and it kept on raining. Where the gate worked at times, by the time I finished, nothing worked. Was now dark, so closed the hatches and abandoned the site.

The system from a well known southern Germany company was installed in 1978 and apart from lightning strikes whacking the electronics from time to time, the main components of the system have been very reliable. Over the years the remote controls have failed and been exchanged.

Result is that the concrete post holding the electronics is full of wires, most of which have simply been cut off with pliers. There is 400V, 230V and 12V running around in there and accordingly loads of cables. Makes me nervous. In fact the whole property is like this with electricity & water.

Now have to decide what to do. Simply get a new remote system from ebay for 50 Euros and patch it or call the manufacturers who also do any service work needed. They are very efficent, do a first class service but the resulting invoice reflects this. Logically I shouldn't need to even consider the solution but the bank balance at the moment is suggesting I search the internet.

Always comes in threes they say. Just hope this is the last costly breakage - first the lawn mower, then Angie's car, now the gate.

No different to my personal health. Kidney Stones, Staphylococcus and now toothache. When last at the dentist in October he had temporarily filled a hole and said I should come back in the New Year when my stones had been sorted. Sadly won't hold and fearing a Christmas Day trip to the emergency department of a Munich hospital, phoned dentist this evening and he gave me an appointment tomorrow at 7:30am. Luckily at the moment only painful if I bite on the one side or let fluids make contact.

So off to bed early for an early start.

Oh by the way, got the message the Android App was up. Tried it quickly and have to say it does look like a 500% improvement. Just hope that it's not at the cost of the PC version, which remains a "challenge" at the moment.