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9 March 2015 (Monday) - Fixed Toilet

I woke feeling rather rough; I wonder why that should be. Mind you I don't think I was as rough as my little dog looked. As I worked yesterday so he had walked. He looked shattered this morning and he didn't stir from his basket at all when I got up.

Over brekkie I showed remarkable self control. On the geo-forums people were (yet again) making snide comments about how crap mobile phones are when used for geo-purposes. After two years of regularly comparing the use of a mobile phone against several dedicated GPS units (and having seen both find several thousand caches) I have seen that for GPS purposes there is no difference between them. The phone screens are bigger and in colour; the GPS units are (supposedly) waterproof. Both have pros and cons. So why is the phone looked on with contempt? I have come to two conclusions about GPS units. I think my conclusions are mutually contradictory; I'm trying to work out which is the correct one.
Either I am right; a GPS unit is a rather expensive waste of money and those with them are covering up the fact that they have wasted a large sum of money.
Or I am wrong; there *is* something worthwhile about having a GPS unit, but there is a conspiracy amongst those with them in that having acquired such a unit you are then sworn to secrecy about what is so good about them.
I *could* have banged on again. But I didn't. People just announce "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND" to which I say "true..."

I looked out of the window. And sighed. There is a parking bay outside our house. It can take seven cars if parked sensibly. Usually only six fit in there. Last night when I came home there were four, as people had parked really selfishly and stupidly. There are a *lot* of parking bays like that round where I live. Having parked ten minutes away last night and walked home I think we could probably have parked another fity cars locally had people parked with just the teensiest bit of thought.
This morning all the cars had gone. Loads of parking spaces. And my saxophone was in the boot of my car several streets away.

I took "Furry Face TM" for a walk. We went round to the park where I met an ex-colleague. She asked after my dog; she'd heard he'd had a bad back. It's amazing how word gets about. We went on to the lake where a certain dog tried to fight ducks. Ducks cheated by going on to the water.
Whilst we were walking I had a phone call from the hospital on St Helena. The boss out there had been impressed with what he'd heard about me. I asked if the job advertised (which had seemed so interesting and appealing last week) was a "doing work" job or a management job. It was to be a bit of both. (Been there, done that, didn't like it.)
After a little chat the boss came to the conclusion that I was the man for the job; I came to the conclusion it wasn't the job for me.

We came home; collecting the car on the way. Once home I got five gallons of beer from the fermentation bin into the barrel in readiness for camping in May.
I then saxed for a few seconds, hoiked a howling dog into the garden, and then saxed some more.

I went to bed for a few hours. I would like to have slept a little longer, but toilet-fixit-man was due. He arrived early, gave my chod-bin a once over and did the requisite sucking-in of air. Apparently I've had the cowboys in (!) and, shaking his head he got down to business. The apprentice was sent out to the van at two minute intervals, before toilet-fixit-man announced he was going to change everything because it was all shit.
I tried to solve geo-puzzles whilst toilet-fixit-man did his thing, but his constant stream of invectives was too distracting. I say "distracting"; perhaps "entertaining" might have been closer to the truth.
After a lot of commotion toilet-fixit-man loudly announced he needed a piss. I hoped it wasn't going to be in the sink. It wasn't. It was in the newly-fixed-all-circuits-go re-fitted chod-bin. It's now got a button rather than a handle, and my rim needs de-scaling. But it's not leaking any more. Hopefully. Time will tell; it always does.

It had been suggested that I might save money by mending the cludgee myself. Judging by the fight a professional chod-surgeon had on his hands I was glad I hadn't tried to do so. Despite having been conned out of thousands of pounds over the loft conversion debacle, I must admit that when it comes to jobs like this I'm still a great beleiver in paying someone else to do the job. If nothing else they have the experience. People who are keen on D.I.Y generally have houses that look as though they are keen on D.I.Y.
I paid just under a ton this afternoon; I had two professional toilet-fixers; an hour of their time, all of their tools, and an entire new set of innards for the chod-bin. I think that's good value... provided it's stopped leaking.

I'm off to work now - via Morrisons for some de-scaler....

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