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Following our lovely trip to Budapest, Fi and I are both off this week (me until Saturday, Fi until Friday). We didn’t have a great deal planned but had a few things round the house we were going to do.

We had budgeted to try to floor a part of the loft so that we could finally empty the spare room of all the suitcases, etc that are there. I knew that the loft had been recently (2008) re-insulated as there were signs up there but I hadn’t really inspected it. I climbed up there yesterday to see how thick the joists were (so I could work out what type of flooring I needed) only to find that the entire loft already has thick chipboard flooring down. Sweet! Not only is it floored but there is also power and lighting up there! The signs warn that the floor isn’t safe to walk on but it seems sturdy enough to take the weight of some suitcases. I guess if the ceiling collapses, we’ll know I’m wrong…

For the first time in quite some time, we are now able to move around the study. This worries me – I know have little to no excuse to not start revising for MRCS Part B.

Given that Tuesday was shaping up to be a fairly productive day, I was pretty bummed by what happened next. I noticed that the washing machine was leaking. At first, I thought that it may have worked the cold-inflow pipe loose when spinning (as it seemed loose). I tightened it but water is definitely still leaking from underneath the machine. I’ve turned off the pipe and laid a towel around the edge to mop up any slow leaks that may still happen. Hotpoint were pretty good about it on the phone – they’re sending someone round to take a look at it on Friday. I’m hoping it’s nothing serious…

After hanging the final curtain pole downstairs I thought I would just mount a toilet roll holder in the downstairs loo before dinner (a minor job that I just hadn’t gotten round to). I marked out where the bracket was to go, whipped out the drill and started drilling. Bang! I only bloody drilled through a live wire! I got a little bit of a shock and all the power switched off. Thank goodness for having the house re-wired and fitted with RCD circuitry. If it hadn’t been for the RCD I would have probably received a pretty nasty shock. I’ve worked out that I managed to drill through the lighting circuit for the lounge and dining room. Fortunately, everything else is now back on. My electrician was supposed to be round to have a look an hour ago but I guess the snow is holding him up. What really annoys me is that I have a wire-detector unit to stop just these sort of things happening but I just didn’t think where I was drilling would have any electrics in it (let alone the lighting circuit). Oh well, a lesson learnt I guess. I just hope it doesn’t cost too much to rectify (or cause too much damage to the wall!).

The third thing that’s been bugging me today is that I don’t think I can keep the Wii or the PS3 in the media cupboard. Why? Well, because the controllers operate via Bluetooth that’s why. Although they are useable, some button presses get “dropped” which is not great for playing games. The problem is that I’m not sure how to connect the consoles to the surround speakers if I move them into the Red Room (the cinema room) as the amp is in the media cupboard. All boring AV geek stuff but an important dilemma that I need to fix…

Fi and I are off to Katie and Pauli’s tonight for dinner (if we can get there through the snow) and Fi is busy making what smells like a fabulous apple crumble. I’d better go and see if she needs a hand…