Pride, falls and all that

Well, they say pride comes before a fall don't they? There I was comgratulating myself on a two week ski trip that didn't result in broken bones or the usual illnesses.

And then we got back home. Which is where the "fall" bit comes in.

At first I thought the lock on the front door was frozen, but now it appears to be completely broken. I waited until the Ball & Chain came home (he was in Colorado for another week on a "conference") to see if he could fix it as it's happened before. We are having to come and go through the back door, which isn't really a problem unless you forget and find yourself standing at the front and then you have to walk down the street, round the corner and up the alley. It appears that the lock can't be fixed; a new part (or a new lock altogether) has to be ordered which is going to take a week. Sigh.

Then we found the flat screen TV in the living room still on. Our TVs need a PhD in applied something or other to turn on and off so it's not unusual to walk past a TV with a glowing white screen. I know who probably did it, but there's a bit of exam tension in the house at the moment so I shall just have to let it be. Besides, I have no real proof, and as the mom here, isn't it always my fault anyway? Apparently it's going to cost about $500 to fix the TV, so obviously, since it's 7 years old, that would be like throwing good money after bad.

Then the kitchen tap/faucet started to leak a lot so we called a plumber in. He too needs to order a spare part. While he was here he also fixed another leaking tap (yay, success) and stood around and tutted at the shower head in the master bathroom. The company where we bought it no longer exists, so it's going to be a challenge to find parts. Trouble is, if we replace the entire thing, they have to go through a bedroom closet, which means taking all the built-in shelving out, chopping up and replastering the wall and.....Sigh!

Unbelievably, the underfloor heating we're supposed to have in our basement seems to have petered out. In comes the heating and under-floor guy who basically tells us that what we have is "a piece of crap, sorry Ma'am" and we're looking at having to replace the entire system (whatever that might be). The sales guy is coming tomorrow to give me a price for everything. I will find a pair of glasses from somewhere, wear very sensible clothes and make him think I know all about furnaces and copper piping. He's not going to jack the price up for this dumb blond.

In the meantime why don't I just stand on the street corner and hand out $100 bills!