Other What Makes Your Life, Meh?

Don’t worry, we’ll just call you Mr Floppy…

 

Just had some cleaners in to do a deep-clean of the kitchen and bathrooms.

On the one hand, that kitchen is cleaner than I’ve ever seen it before. Way better than I’ve been able to do on my own.

On the other hand, they were supposed to be doing the oven as well… but the cleaners didn’t know that until they got here and they hadn’t been scheduled enough time to do it. We were planning to reschedule the oven, but I can probably manage it myself now that everything else is sorted.

They still weren’t able to get walls, ceiling, and extractor hood “fully clean”. It’s better than I’ve ever managed myself, but there’s just too much ingrained grease.

I swear the last tenant in here was running a commercial business from this kitchen. When we moved in, everything in the kitchen was coated in grease and the entire house stank. Underneath the overwhelming reek of Indian food was that familiar smell of high quantities of food being cooked in fat & deep fryers. If you’ve ever worked in a commercial kitchen like I have then you’ll know the smell I’m talking about and you can probably still remember exactly what it was like - it gets into your clothes, your hair, your skin, and no matter how much you scrub yourself down and boil-wash your clothes, you’ll keep smelling it for days afterwards.

So when we moved in we cleaned, the landlord cleaned, and we’ve cleaned and scrubbed countless times since. I had to replace the light fitting some time last year because I got sick of having to use rubber gloves to change a bulb because I didn’t want to touch the filth. I’ve ruined many steam mop attachments trying to clean grease off the cupboards and extractor hood/vent. I lost count of how many “extreme grease buster!” products I've tried over the years. And now we’ve had a professional cleaning company in and it still can’t be fully cleaned.

No way in hell was this from normal domestic use. The dude was definitely running a ****ing takeaway in the weeks or even days before we moved in. The **** left us with his leftover filth and his debts tied to this address, for which we’ve had visits from bailiffs in years past; the shitheel even nicked the electric bloody fireplace from the lounge.

 

I'm glad I never ate any of the food the previous tenants cooked, as I am sure you are. There is no way they were meeting any food hygiene regulations.

 

Food hygiewhatnow?

I’ve stopped ordering from most of the takeaways round here because of their food hygiene ratings. I used to be “okay” with an overall 3/5, but now I won’t even consider it unless: I look up the detailed ratings, they have good reviews, and were inspected in the last 6 months.

You always hear the same excuse for poor ratings: “oh it’s just paperwork, that’s why they marked us down, we’re just too busy to keep on top of the paperwork”. My dude… you are handling, cooking, and serving food to people - you’re god damned right I want you to be up to date with food safety processes and standards!

 

Thankfully, my chippy of choice has maintained a steady 5/5 since hygiene ratings were invented.

 

There's a kebab house in Alloa that's been shut down by the health inspectorate on two separate occasions; everyone I know still goes there though as it's simply the best kebab you'll ever have.

 

Getting a reply dated 17th April 2024 from the taxman...from a letter I sent 17th July 2023.

And I have to send a response before they'll let me have my money. Which means that I should theoretically get a letter requesting more details to be sent on...17th January 2025. And maybe get confirmation...17th October 2025

 

I think they have a, erm, backlog? I get the impression about five people work there nowadays.

I'm still waiting for them to generate a code so I can make a payment my accountant submitted the calculations for so I guess it's working both ways.

The longer I keep the money, the better for me.

 

Maybe has something to do with tax credits getting rolled into universal credit so, every claimant now has to be closed down and final statements sent out etc.

 

My sense of smell is not very good so, it might work for me…

 

Tumble dryer’s died. It’s heating up, but not turning. Stripped it, checked motor, heating element etc, no joy.

Purchased a heat pump model now which will hopefully pay for itself pretty sharpish because ours is on at least twice a day, everyday.

 

lmao are the tories for real?

Went to my bi yearly visit to the shrink and he said "Do you want to continue coming here?"

Yeah, nice try fudge bags. I just said "yes, and I have a feeling you won't be asking me that again when Labour get back in".

 

Trouble with a new neighbour, we're renting and have been there for 16 months. At our previous house for nearly 5 years, no neighbour problems. January time a single older woman moved in and gradually she's become more and more problematic. Initially complained our washing machine was too loud so we started putting it on when she went out. We then replaced it entirely to satisfy her moaning....

She's moaned a few times to us but we've never really understood what noise we're making... we're rarely home and with an autistic son who HATES noise. its not an environment we could possibly be living in....

Today she's 'in passing' complained to our letting agent. Our landlord is a very old friend of my dad so he's happy with us regardless.

Not sure how to deal with this...

 

Go about your life as you would without pandering after her whims. Tell her to get tae ****.

 

Looks like another slow drive home. Nottingham Ring Road and Queen's drive look to be nicely clogged up again. Those routes are so near capacity now (if not over) that it only takes one hiccup to turn a 20-30 minute drive into an hour and half plus.

The problem being that no matter what route I take I have to get over to that side of the city and if one route is nasty, they all will be.

Meh, oh well, at least I have a usb stick full of decent music for the car and the seats are comfy.

 

Cardiff is like this. There's no easy route for me to take to my current job - I either go via some industrial estates (my usual route) and mingle with the slow-moving HGVs that clog everything up and make mincemeat of the road surface, or I take a detour to go through town and sit alongside the thousands of people who couldn't possibly let little Johnny/Jessica walk to school... An accident or closure on one of the major arterial routes into, out of, or around Cardiff causes tailbacks throughout the city.

Cardiff just doesn't have the transport infrastructure, whether it's roads or public transport. I could take public transport, but even if everything is perfect - trains/buses are on time, they're not cancelled, there are no hold ups or traffic problems, etc - it's still more than double my travel time. And things are rarely "perfect" when it comes to our public transport. In my last job I worked in the city centre and I could get to and from the office in about 20-25 minutes via motorbike; by bus, it would take me 40-45 minutes to get in to town - assuming I left my house by no later than 0630 and the buses were on time - and you could count on anywhere between 1 to 2 hours to get home. That was pre-pandemic and it's only got worse since then. The council want people out of their cars as much as possible. They're putting in tons of traffic-calming measures, or reducing the number of lanes to make room for segregated cycle routes, but they're doing absolutely nothing to make public transport a better or more attractive option. There's some fantastic cycling infrastructure in the city centre now... but it's completely useless if you don't start your journey in or near the city centre...

 

home insurance renewal

 

Ugh I feel bad.

Trying to paint my frame on the washing line and had a persistent spider. Three times I evicted him but IDK if he was high on the paint fumes but he kept getting back on and starting to put web all over it. So I had to step on him

I am trying to feel better now. I hate killing anything I am a lover of spiders, see. When they turn up in October I leave them to their own devices and even get them out of the sink if they fall in.