When in Doubt, Try the Freezer

My laptop has been misbehaving over the past few days. Initially, it would not start up, so Andy dismantled it, and did "something" (not too sure what though), but it started again.

All was well until the time came to shut down, nothing we did would make it switch off. We weft the battery to go flat.

Today, it was misbehaving again, so Andy put it in the freezer for half an hour, and hey presto it started up straightaway.

We have no idea what occured, and could not possibly recommend this route to anyone else, but it worked this time!

What can I say, it's a warm day, and there's nothing better than a cool pc.

Heading out to Switzerland for a visit soon, hopefully life will be more straightforward. Received a message from our agent today, the renovations have begun, and we have a new interior wall...to pay for!

Flaming June

Apparently, the expected rainfall for the month of June has fallen in 8 hours. Never mind, after last years' flooding, the council and landowners put in many hours work opening up drainage channels and clearing ditches, so the village would not get flooded in the future. Observe the results of their efforts.

More Grey Hair and a few Chubasco's

We have had the builders at work on our house in Spain doing some alterations. They are local, so exchange of information has been quite tough as we don't share much language. For months they have been telling us in emails that there was no water on at the house, and most recently that there was no meter. This could not be correct, since we have had a water connection and a metered supply paid by standing order, for over 3 years. We thought that they must be looking in the wrong meter cupboard.

So when we arrive to view the finished works, we open up the meter cupboard, and find that the meter is gone. No water supply and no meter. The house is also deep in concrete dust, all over the hard and soft surfaces. Lets just say I was a little unhappy!

After a bit of digging around in official offices in town we end up in the office of a local developer. This company are responsible for supplying the water to the estate, we show the woman at the desk the photo above, explain the situation and show her my bank statement indicating that we have paid for a water supply.

Her expression was priceless. She clearly knew what was going on, got on the phone straightaway, and we were sent back to our house to meet the meter man. A short debate followed as, for some reason he was not keen on fitting our meter, however we pointed out that from our perspective the meter had been stolen and we had paid for a meter and supply. His response was that the meter had not been stolen, so....... he knew too!

Our new meter was fitted early that same evening, and just in case the company is thinking of doing the same again, here it is, image captured for the whole world to see.

We were pretty relieved to get the water on, but that was a bit short lived when we soon had a water outage lasting 15 hours. This was followed by a pretty serious rainstorm, and it was then that we discovered that our builder had failed to consider the need for a doorstep downstairs in the conversion. Our new room was flooded.

After lots of mopping up we headed to the DIY store where Andy purchased a doorstep and some concrete to fit it with. This concrete powder has a setting time of 3-6 minutes, so he had to work quite quickly!

He also discovered that the electrical work that had been undertaken was, well, really odd. Along the lines of, the electrical plugs being wired through the ceiling light fittings.

Still, the builder is coming back to fix that, he called round to give us back our house keys, so we were able to show him the problem. I got the impression that he's seen it before!

The weather continued to be pretty cold and dismal, but it gave us chance to clean the place up and visit the Town Hall to get the Council Tax put on direct debit. The official says "si automatico!" we shall see what happens when it's due for payment.

Here we are driving past the famous Floating Orange Groves of Valencia. Well, the irrigation was afloat, as was the main road. Don't blame us if your oranges are full of muddy water.

Here's the beach view, the Med is normally like a millpond, we have never seen it like this in May.

The stormy weather meant that I could take longer in the shops and try out some different food. Found these tomatoes, called Cebra, very tasty. They don't photograph too well, but are mainly black and red stripes.

The local supermarket seem to have realised that women can never have too many hambags, as these were all over the store.

I have to say that we are both pretty tired after our trip. Hopefully the next time we are there will be much more tranquil.

Rattle and Hum

I have to say, that I think my car is pretty reliable. It's really good at doing what it's supposed to. I'm just back from a long drive to Switzerland, fully laden on the outward journey, and on my own. I pulled up to pay a road toll just outside Geneva, and had to get out of my car, since my steering wheel is on the opposite side to the toll window. I became aware of a really loud rattling noise. Imagine ball bearings being shaken in a bean tin, so I looked around to see which vehicle could be making so much noise.

With a sinking feeling, I realised that I was the only vehicle at the toll, it was my car making the noise! I looked underneath, and saw nothing hanging down, the exhaust was still attached, and the engine seemed quite happy, so I drove on to the next service area.

Still the noise persisted, and drew some attention from folks in the car park. Dilemma, I can't call the breakdown service, because "its making a rattling noise" just would'nt be a valid reason for the callout. No sign of overheating or any other engine nasties, so I kept going to my destination in the mountains of Canton Valais.

On Friday when Andy arrives, he disappears down to the car park, without any tools and returns within 5 minutes, carrying the aluminium plate in the image above. Apparently it's a heat shield from somewhere underneath, and the fastenings had corroded, allowing it to drop down and get wedged somewhere. I must have driven 300 kilometres or more with this thing rattling loose.

It travelled back to my point of origin with me, in the car, not under it!

With thanks to U2 for inspiration on the title.

We Finally Made It

After 2 years and 2 months, we finally got our permit to purchase, so we were able to complete and pay for our apartment. I have to say it felt quite stressful as an experience as the Canton went through several regulation changes whilst we waited. With the last and biggest change, we wondered if we would ever complete.

We had a 3 year cancellation clause in our contract, and we spent plenty of time discussing, just how long we would be prepared to wait. With nothing to lose, we emailed the Canton administration directly and were quite surprised to receive a response advising of the issue of our permit the next week.

So, now we have a large bunch of keys, some dodgy worn out furniture to replace and some bills from the Commune, which was when the realisation finally hit, hey we seem to be the er...owners.

An end of season ski trip gave us chance to decide which furniture to throw out immediately, though I was whacked on the head by a shelving unit which we were dismantling. I had an lump on my head for a week. Undeterred, I headed down to the valley and set my credit card on fire in the department store, buying electrical goods and replacing some of the kitchenwares. Also I've organised internet connection starting in the winter season, so I won't be spending too much more time and money in the Tourist Office in their web corner.

Of course, once the lifts closed, the weather turned really snowy, which was a bit galling, still, it gave me time to sew together the main mattress zip on our click-clack in the lounge. Note to IKEA, plastic zips joining separate mattresses, just don't last. The mattress is fine, the base is great, just ditch the plastic zips.

So, after meeting with a tiler, a carpenter, the Tourist Office (give us money) and a couple of local agencies, we've agreed some alterations. This will leave us penniless for the rest of the year, and some.

As it's a Swiss warm bed, we've also experienced our first cancellation for next winter. This is quite annoying as we re-arranged our stay to accommodate the folks who have now cancelled. I'm just hoping that this is an unusual occurence, we shall wait and see. The learning curve continues to climb steeper and steeper.

Anniviers Season Finale

I arrived in Grimentz on the 31st March to be met by Ian, and David (from the Facebook group Anniviers Ski), who had a coffee in our apt but they curiously declined my irresistable offer of helping me unload the car. Ho hum.

April Fools Day was glorious sunshine topped up with a little fresh snow. Great conditions both on and off piste. Called round to say hi to near neighbours Brian and Linda, who were skiing until the weekend.

The next day saw some more fresh snow. Met up with Ian and skied the day on and off piste around the Lona slopes. Visibility was a bit variable, but Ian made the best of the conditions playing in the shrubbery. When the sun finally came out conditions were wonderful. This was the 1st day out with Fritschi Freeride bindings on my Stockli Stormrider AT's. To me they don't feel really any different than regular alpine bindings, and there is certainly no issues for me around the binding feeling sloppy, and needing to raise the DIN setting.

On the Thursday I skied around Bendolla in the morning and missed meeting up with Ian and David for lunch. In the afternoon, the visibility was not too great, so I fitted my skins and got some practice skinning up the side of the piste. My rate of ascent is still um.....slow. More practice needed.

Friday came around and more fresh snow. Took the lift up with Linda who had left Brian in the apt to look after the children. We had a great time skiing the Lona black in amazing bluebird powder conditions.

Of course, Brian was rather keen to get some pow for himself, so Linda returned to their apt and I took a couple of runs with Brian. The powder off piste was quite deep, but very dry, and really good fun. Andy was arriving at lunchtime, so back to our apt for a quick lunch and we ski the afternoon together in lovely conditions.

The weekend arrives and the resort is not too busy thankfully. The sunshine has made the off piste a bit crusty so we stick largely to the marked slopes.

It's the last opening day of the season, and this is the view that greets us.....

Fresh powder, and a big local crowd in the Bendolla restaurant with a band playing. Are all Swiss tone deaf?

The slopes were made more interesting by the pisteurs taking out the marker poles starting in the morning, with low visibility making life interesting. I got the feeling that the lifts closed early, clearly I needed more ski time.

I had planned to do some skinning as I need the practice, but the commune had ploughed a summer road across the piste, so the few skiers that managed to get up the hill somehow, had a hard time crossing this...

Though I would have loved to do some more skiing, in reality I was generally quite busy spending money on the apartment, arranging alterations and catching another Swiss cold!

You have to laugh....eventually

Here's two photos of gas meters. The old and dusty one, was in our gas cupboard for almost eight years, quietly adding up our usage, until we received a letter from National Metering telling us it had to go.

Apparently, the meter had a battery which was impossible to replace. I wonder who had that bright idea.
Anyway, a day was booked for the replacement to be fitted, the job was done and the fitter left the shiny new one in the box, fitted.
One slight problem, it made a horrible whistling noise. The sort of noise that goes right through you and starts an instant headache.
Back came the fitter to the house next door, which was making the same horrible noise. Between us, we used up all the meters he had in his van.
He said he's never enountered anything like it, scratched his head, and called his boss, then came back with another batch of meters.

We thought the problem had gone away, but we were wrong. So, I put in a call to the company call centre, who gave me the run around suggesting I should contact my energy supplier who could arrange a new meter...etc..etc. Well, I let National Metering know that they have caused this, and they should fix it, it really has nothing to do with my energy supplier!
I suggest that I should call the press next, and they could send a TV crew to have a listen to the noise that we were enduring.
Amazingly another fitter arrived within an hour, changed the regulator and hey presto, bliss.