{"id":2880,"date":"2012-04-15T07:05:48","date_gmt":"2012-04-15T06:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/?p=2880"},"modified":"2012-04-15T13:48:11","modified_gmt":"2012-04-15T12:48:11","slug":"15-april-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/2012\/04\/15\/15-april-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"15 April 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rain\"Now this is more like what we\u2019re used to \u2013 we\u2019ve had April Showers in abundance this week which is undoubtedly good news for the water table. No danger of our hosepipe ban being lifted, of course, but we desperately need the rain so can\u2019t complain, really.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had some more or less permanent guests this week \u2013 we have “upgraded” our bathroom facilities and have hosted a succession of plumbers (and the occasional electrician) throughout the week. The decision to upgrade our bathing facilities did not come willingly, I have to confess, and was not something we would have voluntarily undertaken at this time except for the fact that the shower in our bathroom began leaking through the downstairs ceiling for the third (or even fourth) time and Penelope couldn\u2019t face the task of repairing it again herself. (As you will appreciate, she gets no assistance from me in these sorts of tasks). So, we summoned our local favourite plumbing firm and they arrived on Tuesday to undertake the task.<\/p>\n

\"Shower\"They completely stripped out the old shower, tray and tiles and have installed a new one with a triple silicon barrier to prevent any further mishaps. While they were here we\u2019ve also had them discard the crappy shower attachment we had over the bath in the \u201cfamily\u201d bathroom and replace it with a proper shower mixer tap so that occupants will no longer be scalded and frozen in turn whilst using it. Penny\u2019s sister Judi, who arrives this week for a stay, is said to be ecstatic at the news.<\/p>\n

We did have a few moments of anxiety during the process. The plumbers arrived with the new shower tray which was very smart and very slim-line; it was only about an inch deep which I felt wasn\u2019t going to be deep enough. We were assured that it is designed to handle a volume of water somewhat in excess of what our system would normally generate so all would be fine and in it went. When testing its drainage, however, the plumber discovered that the water did not drain away sufficiently quickly and if used the tray would simply overflow. It seems that, like much about this house, the drainage for the shower was not ideal \u2013 there is an insufficient fall on the waste pipe and it is tee-d into the waste drain from the bathtub which apparently is no longer recommended \u2013 each waste pipe should have its own discharge. So, out it came to be replaced by a tray of sufficient depth to remedy our drainage shortcomings. The setback only cost us an extra day and hopefully we will now be able to keep ourselves clean and fragrant without watering the downstairs carpet. The new shower mixer in the \u201cfamily\u201d bathroom is also a considerable improvement and I am sure J will be delighted with the new experience of showering without alternatingly being scalded and frozen.<\/p>\n

We had a great Easter weekend \u2013 I hope you all did as well. On Easter Sunday Penny\u2019s nephew Michael and his young family came for afternoon tea with Beryl and Oz and Pen laid on an Easter egg hunt for the boys which was a great success. Then, on Easter Monday, Penelope and I trotted across to Nick and Lucy\u2019s for lunch. Nick and Lucy prepared a fantastic Sunday roast dinner and we spent the bulk of the afternoon being entertained and amused by Annabelle\u2019s antics with her pet rabbit, a present from sister Sallie.<\/p>\n

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httpvh:\/\/youtu.be\/5oJJN5fNKhg<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m intrigued to know \u2013 when do children start finding things so funny that they laugh out loud? Clearly, laughing is one of those phenomena which children come to naturally.<\/p>\n

I ran across a collection of amusing videos depicting April Fools\u2019 Day pranks on the Huffington Post<\/a> the other day. (I had indeed seen one of those depicted in the Observer and had not spotted that it was a joke). Amongst this collection \u2013 an opportunity to purchase the whole of You Tube on DVDs, the launch of a mango and Marmite smoothy from Innocent (and, if you don\u2019t know about Marmite consider yourself blessed), and child-free cabins on WestJet airlines (the kids get bundled into the cargo hold, the adults have a comfortable and stress-free flight and the kids get delivered to you at your destination along with your luggage. Sounds like a great idea to me! And think, what a bonus it would be when the airline sends your luggage (and kids) somewhere else)! You can see the clips here<\/a>, if you are so minded.<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/a>Finally, I noticed that yesterday’s Google Doodle marked the 100th birthday of Robert Dosineau<\/a>, the French photographer whose most iconic and well-known photograph is “Le Baiser de l\u2019Hotel de Ville<\/em>” [Kiss at the Hotel de Ville] which has featured in the pages of the Befouled Weakly News before<\/a>. As I’ve said before, kissing is good for you and I intend to do as much as I can get away with.<\/p>\n

Love to you all,<\/p>\n

Greg<\/p>\n

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Now this is more like what we\u2019re used to \u2013 we\u2019ve had April Showers in abundance this week which is undoubtedly good news for the water table. No danger of our hosepipe ban being lifted, of course, but we desperately need the rain so can\u2019t complain, really.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9w76b-Ks","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2880\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}