Good Morning Early Birds X

[Smowball]

God it's pretty dark  here still - plays tricks on the mind when the clock time says get up but the weather/light says stay in bed! Have only had about 2 hours sleep and lots to do today so should be interesting! Lots of birthday cards to get in post today. Mind you I watched a news article last week about the price of 1st class stamps having gone up something insane like 70% in 2 years (that's not quite right but the figures were insane) and they were saying that people shud either post 2nd class Xmas cards this year  or else email them! The few people they spoke to said they were seriously considering not bothering to send Xmas cards  at all.

Anyone got anything going on today then? X

[Impatiens]

Good morning Smow. I think you must survive on less sleep than Margaret Thatcher did! I’m up and ready for the electrician who is coming, I hope, to fix our central heating thermostat. Not a minute too soon by the sound of the weather forecast! Have a good day.

[Canary42]

Good Morning Smow et al. I've just got back from shopping and it's overcast and a chilly wind.

I also posted off a Birthday Card, not sure how much the stamp cost, I tend to keep some in store and can't recall what I paid. I think I may resort to e-mail for Christmas.

I might take advantage of the cooler day and do some hedge trimming later on today. 

[Smowball]

Hope the central heating thermostat is an easy job to fix. When we were at in-laws at weekend they were showing us their very lovely wall mounted fireplace which  apparently cost the prev owners almost 5K, but had suddenly stopped working. They'd been on fone to engineers etc who all said it sounded a familiar but v complicated job and quoted silly prices, and just wanted a date to come round and 'fix' issue. MrSmow looked up model online, various common trouble shooting things and fixed it within an hour. The problem? There was a hidden box/power pack within the wall behind it which needed two new batteries! That was it - 2 batteries lol! 

[david small]

Well done indeed to your resourceful husband. It shows that certain companies can take advantage of lack of knowledge. The proffer the weak excuse that you pay for what we know as well as what we do. Unscrupulous in my opinion. Integrity, wherefore art thou?

[Smowball]

Morning David. Yep I completely agree - dread to think how many people have been taken advantage off when they haven't a clue what was wrong, and it was really something ridiculously simple to sort.

[Smowball]

Everyone still hibernating?? lol

[Impatiens]

We have a family mantra. “If all else fails, read the instructions”.

[barry1010]

Morning all.  I hate relying on any of the trades, if you choose the wrong one it is a nightmare.

[Rosetta]

Morning Smow and all. I'm back into worry mode as OH is feeling a bit poorly this morning, we are hoping its just a reaction to the shingles jab he had at the end of last week. does anyone know if you can still buy the old fashioned type thermometer, I dont trust the digital one we got during covid?

[calda49]

Good morning all. I belong to a website called Neighbourhood, and people post about things going on. It is very good at issueing warnings about scams, but also recommends local workmen who have done work for them and can be trusted. It also warns against the rip off merchants. Have found my central heating engineer on there, and decorator, and odd job man. Well worth a look.

[calda49]

Correction to above post. the website is called Nextdoor, not Neighbourhood.