Thursday 1 July 2021

What a Day!!!

 

It was like Piccadilly Circus here yesterday. Firstly the man who mows the footpaths, mowed a new neighbour's temporary electrical connection behind our house. His cable, which had been lying on the surface of the path for almost a year (not recommended), was half hidden by the long grass, and the tractor driver drove right over it; tearing the cable from the electrical box connection, and shredding it.

Thank goodness the cable was torn from the connecting box before he chewed it up. He might not be with us now had he mowed from the other direction. I had told the man, who's connection it is, that it would have been better to put the cable up on the bank where it could do no harm, but advice can only be given; not enforced. Hopefully he'll listen next time.

They managed to have the power re-established before evening, so all is now well. And, yes, he's now put the cable where I had originally suggested.

Then I found our nice Water Board man in the paddock, leaning over some buried stopcock, which was issuing forth water. He explained that there was a leak somewhere up by the church, about 2 Kms to the East of us, and he was opening all the stopcocks between us and there; I have no idea why. This time it may not be quite so easy to repair, and the water may be running for some while. Luckily we're not paying for it. It is still running, and it'll be a while before it can be mended (a week?).

Totally unrelated to the water man and his stopcocks, we then found that our own water meter up at the barn was slightly leaking. There was a plumber working nearby, who promised to have a look. He fixed the leak with a couple of turns of a large spanner, and all was done free of charge.

Then, as if all that wasn't enough, our Charpentier turned up for the first time for over a week. He had his second vaccine jab on the same day as us (June 23rd), and has been suffering ever since. We had Astra-Zeneca with no problems; he had Moderna, and felt like death for a week. He should be back at work today; I hope so.

28 comments:

  1. It looks like you had one of those days "when it rain it pours," metaphorically and literally. The electric cables were dangerous and could have caused an accident. I had an electric shock once which threw me about 3 feet away. I was more puzzled being in a different place than stunned landing on my backside. Following your ramblings of life from Malaysia

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    1. Had the tractor driver chewed-up the cable BEFORE it had been wrenched from the main supply box, he might well now be dead. One can only explain the dangers so many times, after that it's up to them; until the inevitable happens.

      Welcome Kestrel. I think you may be my first malaysia comment.

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  2. Dangerously irresponsible by the sound of it, and what authority would allow such an unsafe practice.

    I expect the man dealing with all those cocks was reducing the pressure at the leak site while it is being repaired.

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    1. They're there at the moment, and making a terrible mess of our lawn.

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  3. Here, too, yesterday was a day of malfunctions and breakdowns of some electrical appliances that have no connection at all with each other, and yes, also a leak in one of the garden pipes.

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    1. The Water folk are replacing a huge cast-iron underground 'tap', that we didn't know was there. Unfortunately it's about 6 ft underground, so there are huge piles of earth everywhere.

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  4. Talking to French workmen... it occurred to me that after all those years in France you must be pretty fluent in the French language. How would you score your level of fluency on a scale from 0 to 10 with 10 being as fluent as Emile Zola and 0 being as fluent as a duck... What about Lady Magnon's fluency?

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    1. I would give myself a 9, but my written French is awful. Lady M's very first language was Russian (she had a Russian nanny in Moscow), then she spoke Spanish (Venezuela), then American (Washington DC), then English (Isle of Wight). Her French is OK, but it does become confused at times. Her mother was Swedish.

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    2. She sounds like a very handy traveling companion!

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    3. Her Spanish has come in very handy in the past.

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  5. Now that we are all emerging slowly from our shelters it seems that our utilities are also waking up, but with stiff joints and leaks.

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    1. The Water folk have made a terrible mess of the lawn; I hope they're going to leave it looking better.

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  6. Oh my gosh,that was a fun day wasn't it? Oh well, a bit of entertainment if nothing else!

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  7. I hate days like that! Look at the bright side, at least no one was killed!

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    1. Only by luck. The poor tractor driver was quite shaken.

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  8. I'd rather not have anything to do with any product that has a fake corporate sounding name like 'Moderna'.

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    1. I believe they were changing its name to 'Spikevax', which is even more silly.

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  9. I sympathise. We got woken up by a pneumatic drill outside our window. Very rare for our neck of the woods but a loud reality. And then temperatures which seared the brain .
    Enough . At least tomorrow will be slightly cooler

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    1. We should be having 28 C today which is good for swimming. I swam yesterday in 22 C water. It should go up a bit today.

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  10. Mostly Pfizer here and we are to get booster in September in one arm and the uaual Flu jab in the other arm - we will soon look like pincushions.

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    1. No mention of boosters here as yet. I suspect a lot of people will reject it; they're beginning to get bored with the whole thing.

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  11. Wow what a day! I find it interesting that someone can get the Astra-zenaca dose in France, when the EU does not have it on the approved list of vaccines for international travelers from Canada. Many of us, including our PM got Astra-zeneca as a first shot...so that is interesting. I was hoping to come for a visit some day...
    Barb

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    1. First Macron said that A-Z was poison, then they blamed A-Z for not supplying them, then they took A-Z to court for not supplying quickly enough; and lost their case. All this out of revenge for the UK quitting the EU.

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  12. They say trouble comes in threes, so maybe your week's allotment is done? Glad the fellow on the mower wasn't electrocuted!

    We had no choice here as to vaccines; you got what they had the day you showed up. Moderna was the offering when I went. Not too bad. I did better than your carpenter.

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    1. The mowing man was extremely lucky. There may even be some enquiry about it. Leaving live cables on a public path must be illegal.

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  14. Pressed publish too soon!
    That really was some day. Still, better to have everything happen together, then you can get on with life!!

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