The time of my April adventure is now well past but the reverberations continue, not least the growing desire to do it again. Clearly there are some aspects that I would not like to repeat, or know have been repeated but, overall, the intensity of the experiences and the consequent enticement to have more are the positives that tempt me on.
The related time-wise experience of the house flood and aftermath is clearly something I do not want to go through again. Gone now are the drying machines and so the resultant headaches, chest pains, sore eyes, and general deadening effects of that constant noise from the machines. Finished is the repair and redecoration of the damaged areas of the bedroom, hall and kitchen, though I still have a few bits in the kitchen to finish off. All the furniture, cloths and other stuff from our bedroom has temporally been moved and stored around the remainder of the house so we feel we are living in a cramped storage unit. This and the removal by me of the damaged carpet and underlay in the bedroom was all to allow the laminate for the hall and carpet for the bedroom to be laid today. It continues as I speak.
I took the opportunity yesterday to replace three thermostatic radiator valves that occasionally weep during the winter. A bit of a fraught exercise as, despite using a pipe freezing system, minor floods were part of the process. Of course this morning when they arrived to fit the laminate they pointed out that there was always a risk of dampness from such a bitumastic type floor screed and that it should be checked out by the local authorities building control staff for adequacy and possibly dug up and replaced. Trying to not laugh or cry I pointed out that not only would the local authority not be interested, but the only way to replace the suspect screed and install a better one would be to take down the surrounding walls. As this would not only be a bit over the top to just put a new floor finish down that reasoning would probably lead to the conclusion that the whole building would need to be taken down and started again. So I had to sign a statement to the effect that they would not be held responsible for future problems consequent upon laying the laminate on the suspect floor screed. I duly signed and dated and sighed.
An adventure that seems to continue to give, but I wonder for how much longer.
But back to the 'exciting' stuff of my North American trip. While away I had used a credit card specifically set up to be used abroad so that you do not pay interest on expenditures just on any outstanding deficit if you do not fully pay off the the sum on the monthly statement. When checking the statement I noticed that the restaurant in Montreal, which had served me up one of the worst meals I have ever been confronted with, had added $2 to the meal cost. This was $2 dollars added to the total I had signed off against and as shown on my receipt. $2 is not a lot but because it looked like they decided to give themselves to tip I had chosen not to give, I was annoyed. Contacting the card company I made my complaint and two letters and three phone calls later I was notified that the money would be refunded to my card. The letter confirming this subsequently arrived but also included in the envelope was a letter to someone else about their account, hardly secure or proper. So I wrote back to the card company enclosing the errant letter. Two days later I received a phone call from the company thanking me for contacting them and explaining the mistake, apologising for the error, and offering me £20 for the inconvenience caused.
Again an adventure that continues to give.
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