Ginger DJ Rob

Hole in the road Originally uploaded by Ginger DJ . For the last few weeks we've been waiting, nervously that our drainage pipe would be repaired under the insurance. Thankfully it did but didn't quite expect all this. It all started after calling in the council for a rat problem who then discovered that the rats had been burrowing through and taking residence in our front room bay window cavity wall. The cause of the drain problem wasn't actually super rats using pneumatic drills to break through the pipes - just 'pressure' from above. Quotes started at £3000 but with the sudden appearance of a road digger, fences and a ton of earth its going to be over twice that. God knows what the neighbours are thinking (probably thinking where the f*ck am I going to park) as the works spread across 10 spaces.

Just trying out some web stuff testing out Google Documents and publishing to the blog hence the title and images below from a Word document. My dad is still needing a buyer for his business as some guy is messing him about so has asked me for help. He has a website but with a hosting company which doesn't offer any flexibility. So I'm going to create a web 2.0 online presence using just Google tools then advertise the blog with photos, documents, even videos if necessary, through specialist magazines and online forums. His website is www.jagsparesinternational.com . Rats They've been living in our cavity wall for months but after hearing falling rubble (okay, something smaller than rubble) inside the wall, the council was called. We've got a drain right outside the front which connects straight to the main sewer under the road. Its been a cosy, winter retreat until their summer holiday at the allotments down the road. According to the council man, the drains have bee...

The main reason for our Norfolk visit was my nan's funeral. We'd left plenty of time for our journey arriving in generous time. My cousin flew over from Ireland but had to drive the rest from Stansted and arrived literally two minutes into the 'we are gathered here today' speech. It was a traditional service with a nice auto-biographic written when my nan turned 90. Otherwise it was trying to sing the chosen hymns getting the up and down notes wrong with the lyrics. At the wake, I was introduced to a new generation of family never seen before, including 14 year old twins are going to Shanghai for a school exchange and 17 year old thinking about Brighton Uni. My uncle, always one for coming up with good conversation and a knack for genealogy, had traced the family back to 1620 with possible links to a famous local witch in Derbyshire. Returning back to my dad's house and the snow fell, and fell, and fell. It was starting to settle at a disturbing rate and worries sta...

Image by Ginger DJ via Flickr Working at home is not good for me as there are far too many distractions. Although this helped ensure the boiler got repaired, the same day we had our new wardrobe and drawers delivered (a half-priced, ex-display Habitat bargain bought the previous weekend). The problem was that the delivery men couldn't lift it anywhere near our front door as it was too heavy. Whilst one of them had to deliver something else, his mate and I dismantled the wardrobe on the street. This took nearly an hour though once in, I was constantly moving the parts upstairs and putting them together again. By 5pm I had completely put the mammoth wardrobe (big enough to house the whole of Narnia) together with very little progress made on a major project I'm doing. Not strictly working from home, but that was the excuse, was a trip to the vet the next day. Sasha, our feline friend has developed a lump on the side of his neck. Its the equivalent to a human having a growth t...

My current workload both professional and personal has meant very little blogging. The entry below has also caused time away from anything fun. A few weeks ago the plumber, who caused one of the most stressful moments of my life tried to bill me with work for three times as much as quoted. I was slightly surprised he had the nerve to be honest. This over-the-top bill and the fact he could have killed my tenants, according to Transco was naturally refused with a deftly written letter. The reply came back with an irate response. With the prospect of getting a solicitor involved I was actually glad to hear the opinion from the other, saintly plumber who came in to save the situation. Apparently, he's got such a bad reputation that the majority of Norfolk tradesman and Transco are driven round the U-bend and wish his stop-cock cut off. Since then I've done a few things. Reported the plumber to the Trading Standards, though they haven't done much, contacted CORGI, who pointed me...

I did my husband duty of watching the Sex and the City film on Friday night. I can handle the normal 30 minutes format of the TV programme which can be quite funny but 148 minutes of fluffed up nothingness made me reach for the laptop. Even Kerry commented that it made women look like brand junkies with too many product placements. Our Burnt Flesh Festival party preparations are going well overspending on the Halloween decoration. The house will get a proper haunted make-over ready for the big night. Even Sasha, our cat has got into the spirit of the party with his own costume (I can't believe how well he posed for the camera). The home improvement plan also took its toll over the weekend as we had two major jobs to do: 1) erect the new shed and 2) remove the plaster from the fireplace. The weather was a complete contrast to last week starting with patchy rain but with the shed parts taking up most of the dining room we took the risk. We painted two sides with a wood stain then put...

I've noticed lately that my blog has turned into a weekend write-up and this entry will be no exception. As soon as I returned from work on Friday we were back into the garden laying the turf. It was a bit like laying carpet but muddier and using a kitchen knife and spade to cut the edges. Saturday was supposed to be another hard grind but ended for me at 10:30am doing my back in. Whilst lifting the boxes of old hardcore for the dump I did my lower back in. Ignoring it we drove to the local dump with four boxes of brick and concrete to chuck. After the 2nd or 3rd box I somehow twisted the wrong way whilst picking up the box bringing in more pain across my chest. The rest of the day I was doing very light lifting of tree cut-offs though I did manage to create an equivalent of a Stannah lift for our old-aged cat. Poor puss can't jump too far and is in danger of breaking his legs so I built him a platform/shelf to get over the fence. Skydiving with her indoors Back in April, ...

After a great BBQ on Saturday with Emma & James and Paul & Sarah, we're now cooking up a party for Halloween/Bonfire night. The problem is that Underworld play on Saturday 1st November so are people willing to come down to Brighton for a tame Halloween on the Friday night or would rather save themselves for a Saturday night. Either way we only have one proper room for guests, though Paul & Sarah may put up a few, or you'll have to make your back by train or car. Email, text, call us to say which you'd prefer: Friday 31st October or Saturday 8th November (If you can't make either then please say as well) Whichever date we go for we want to make it a memorable one with Kerry's Pumpkin Lantern Competition which there will be prizes. Have a look at these websites for some ideas and guidance. Our back garden bank will be a gallery of spooky lanterns amongst the bamboo, trees, plants and tree-stump. Pumpkin Carving 101 Zombie Pumpkins More details to come soon...

Be prepared for quite an ordinary entry as I summarise a quiet week. You'll be glad to hear that Sasha the cat is back to his normal food-pestering, cupboard-love self and the limp has almost gone. The vet, who's made enough money out of me this year, wrote to say they have a free 'senior' check-up service. He's not quite ready for geriatric care yet. My mum's house is nearly ready for the new tenants but I won't be seeing any profit just yet with the gas engineer finding a leak and the electrician recommending new earth cables. A scary estimate of £300 plus VAT was downgraded to £80 for the gas side - apparently its been leaking about 4 units a day! Finally saw The Dark Knight last night. For nearly 3 weeks old and on what should really be a quiet night the cinema was quite full. Its a bit of a marathon to watch and some people (like Kerry) will get bored towards the end. However, there's some amazing set pieces, Heath Ledger performed well, all the c...

NFH It's been a battlefield of nerves taking place in our back garden lately. When I mean nerves I mean tits as in 'getting on our' with the neighbours who live behind us winding us up with their public displays of non-affection. We're really regretting cutting down the tree as its just given them the incentive to use their backyard as a mini-Butlins. The father had a go at me last night for shining a torch at his windows! After the cinema I had to get the clothes in from the washing line and used a headband spotlight to see what I was doing in the backyard. Such a meathead! BBQ and Beach Middle-class moan over as we entertained Emma and James who are back from their Australasian adventure with beers, barbie and beach to celebrate. Nice to dust off the Wii tennis to some newbies. Brighton beach was full to busting on Sunday but found a spot near Hove lawn gardens where the annual charity bungy was taking place. WALL-E wonder Last night was 2 for 1 night on the town. I...

Just a few news snippets from my riveting life. My mum's house has received zero viewings or any interest. Only a previous viewing resulted in a positive reaction for the rented option. Work-wise, my contract is ending in September but could be extended to permanent as the maternity lady goes part-time. Other work news was attending a charity evening last Friday with a raffle and an auction of promises. Those needy people in China and Burma got around £40 from me as I bought the promises of a baking lesson and a mountain bike tour of the South Downs. I think we've overdone Indiana Jones. We're about 83% complete on the PS3 game and saw the film last weekend. The celluloid version was ok but not fantastic. It all started well bringing in a 20 year difference being set in the 50's with the atomic bomb testing and Hangar (Area) 51 jokes wearing well. But it was the OTT jungle chase that lost my respect and attention-span with action set-piece after another. Having Ray Wins...

Not really much going on apart from making our house a constant mess with tools, sawdust, paint, things in boxes and furniture scattered around the place as the DIY marathon continues. As some relief to the home improvement slog, we treated ourselves to Lego Indiana Jones on the PS3. It's a great game for two people but the Star Wars one was just a bit better. Some of the perspectives are a bit confusing and frustrating at times but all the key scenes make up for it. We've already started the third film but there's so much else to collect and complete for that 100%. Although the cartoon brick violence has been kept light-hearted, I was surprised to see Lego Indy kicking an arab in the stomach whilst he was down - not very sporting but hilarious. There are no references to Nazis either to keep it clean. There's not much else to report on my mum's house for sale either. There have been a few viewings and good feedback but no one's biting with any offers. As the m...

I knew it was too good to be true. Having checked my holiday leave entitlement, HR had fudged up the numbers and I was now in minus figures with the Glastonbury week off and proposed week off for DIY. Instead I have three days off to do the laminate flooring and prepare the new extended room for next week's visitors. Glastonbury has also been cut short of it's recovery period The local B & Q and Jewson store's' profits must have jumped this month with me buying all sorts of tools and materials. By the end of the day we'd leveled off the front room floor to match the dining room floor height plus a hatch cut out ready for the electrician to change the socket. Sasha, my adopted cat was taken to the vet for another whoppingly high bill. Pure little geezer had been squeezing out blooded poos which meant a blood test, injection, pills and poo analysis. £172 later the vet announced that the blood test revealed a clean bill of health, surprising for an old man like him...

Not much socialising lately or going out. Jake’s birthday bash wasn’t quite what we expected. A lot of his so-called mates didn’t turn up and the after-party didn’t really happen. The builders’ visits have becoming more and more infrequent but all the big changes have been done including the plastering of the lounge ceiling. My mum’s house is finally on the market. I’ve completed the HIP myself and found a really cheap online estate agent called Hatched.co.uk which can advertise on Rightmove . Instead of paying the 1 to 2% commission using a high street estate agent I only pay about £250 to advertise and another £250 on completion. All this should save me a packet. Thing is, it was the For Sale sign that’s generated the actual interest from people walking by! Two of them lived on the same street and one noticed it from viewing another. Quite amazing for a road that’s less travelled. Grand Theft Auto 4 has arrived though disappointingly we’ve played it just once. With the amo...

Selling my mum's house or preparing for it is proving to be a trickier than I thought. Although there's a few websites out there to help someone like me, Home Information Packs (HIP) are an easy bit of money making for the experts and just time-wasting red tape. There's an opportunity there for a Dummies guide I'm sure. The Index and Sales Statement are easy and to be honest a bit of a joke. The Energy Performance Certificate was reasonable to organise at the cheapest price of £82. My mum's house did averagely but the report assumed bits of it knocking the score down. The Title Information was slightly misleading as the Land Registry is a mind-field of confusion. It turned out that all I needed was a letter confirming it hasn't been registered so no costs involved there. The Drainage report should be coming soon and instead of using an official conveyancing map to draw the plot I used Google Maps - fingers crossed for that will be enough. The Local ...

I've already moaned about about the small sacrifices we've made to completely change our kitchen however the past few days have made our life just a little more inconvenient depending on your level of patience. All the basics we need from the kitchen and dining room including my bike are now in the lounge. As we were clearing out the dust-filled dining room we discovered that our cooker had disappeared. It was last seen by the carpenter outside of the house. The project manager forgot to say he'd put it in his lock-up. Plumber came round yesterday to relocate a bunch of pipes with the movement of the kitchen wall. He left around 7pm last night with all facilities working as normal until after the second flush of the toilet. After that it either wouldn't fill up the system or over-flowed so we had to resort to filling up an old plastic bottle until the builders came back this morning. The worst of the inconvenience is the skip outside waiting for all the delayed wall re...

Easter was a family-in-law catch-up 5 hours drive away in Plymouth. Great to see Donna and my niece Morgan playing Picto-chat on her new Nintendo DS. Conversation with a 6 year old wasn't too demanding but it was still fun asking her if chocolate or cake was her favourite. Back home and we had things to move ready for the builders. Our kitchen/dining room/lounge was going to be transformed into an uber open plan cooking machine! We're now washing our dishes in the bath and learning to like microwave and take-aways. I feel the pounds subtracting from my wallet and adding to my waistline. Can't wait to see the back of the dust. Catch up with the day-to-day photo diary on my FlickR website under House Vs. The Builders .

Happy Birthday Karol by way! We couldn't make her meal in swanky London town on Saturday with Kerry still suffering but hear that Karol herself had succumb to the same belly troubles. Hope you're better sis-in-law. Watched some frogs get frisky with each other on Sunday as we walked round Stanmer Park (as pictured) trying out my new wide-angle lens. Double-crossing salesman Last night we were subjected to a sales pitch for some double-glazing. "You buy one ye get one free" as the annoying baldy Northerner says from SafeStyle who got in there first. With Kerry's sales training experience and my own marketing background it was almost embarrassing and was amazed that the same shitty, shifty sales tactics are still being used but dressed up for the 21st century. All we wanted was a quote for a kitchen window and it took 100 minutes. The salesman mentioned we could get a discount for using our window as a website case study then rang the 'marketing' department ...

Tuesday evening we picked up Sasha from the vets after his operation which was to clean and extract some teeth, and remove a lump from his back. I didn't realise he needed stitches to repair the hole where the lump was so it came as a surprise that the bill at around £270! Mark, my wedding's best man has offered me a business deal for my mum's house. He's promised to renovate the house, paying for his time and material costs for half the profit after current valuation. With the plans he has in mind we could get £165k in May/June. Otherwise we've been amusing ourselves with a couple of games lately. Unchartered: Drake's Fortune on the PS3 is impressing me with some of the best graphics and quite fun shooty bits. A cross between Resident Evil 4 and Tomb Raider. We also downloaded a network demo version of Lost Planet . It's not brilliant but I'm impressed by the speed of playing online.

The last two weeks at work have been murder by CMS (Content Management System). This web project is going to kill me plus the front room to the house has been without heating since the builders did the damp course (discovering the guaranteed work arranged by the previous owners did a cowboy job). With the radiator out of action we tried the fireplace for the first time. The only thing the previous owners did leave behind was a bag of coal which came in really useful. Buying curtains was the only other highlight of the weekend. Roll on Christmas.