Search Results

I have been having a problem with my toilet for quite a few weeks now (and I cannot believe I haven´t mentioned it yet). Having reread the first sentence, maybe I should rephrase it. At the start of the year, I discovered a large crack down the from of the toilet cistern in my bathroom. I actually woke up in the night, visualising it breaking apart and wondering where all the water torrents of water would go to (ok, slight hyperbole). I decided the best thing to do was drain it, but of course that requires stopping the refilling process - so all the usual hassle with head between knees and as I tried to adjust the stop-tap hidden under the back of the unit. Managed that and drained it, so slept slightly better for a couple of nights, but then the replacement started to haunt me (and actually still does). The following is the response from the makers : "El modelo Sydney está descatalogado y no hay disponibilidad del tanque . No hay otro tanque compatible con el modelo". and actually says the model is out of production and no other cistern is compatible. Great. Thanks for that. I only have 5* of them in the house - oh, and by the way, beige colour is no longer produced in anything at all either, but they do have "pergamon". Bit of a bugger when the whole house has beige roca fittings everywhere. I was actually not unaware of this issue, as another cistern broke in a similar way about 3 or 4 years ago (obviously a design flaw) whereupon my late-lamented plumber Antonio disappeared into the bowels of some sanitary suppliers and produced a cistern which managed to make the basement loo funtional again. White, but you honestly would not notice. Digression - spent some time on the Roca website trying to identify the model, but it seems the numbers stamped inside have nothing to do with the model - in fact the makers asked me to send a couple of ´photos so they could identify it (as being out of production!). Eventually they decided it was their late 90´s model "Sydney" - something my builder established in 10 seconds by looking at the name under the seat lid. Oh bugger - the whole kit and caboodle is part of an outdated system (therefore replacement bog seats and lids are pretty unlikely as they are unique too). I tried to establish which model it was that Antonio had installed (before his untimely demise, so no question of asking him) and Roca proved equally useless in identifying that - just reverting with their standard"no hay otra" (there is no other). I am no almost an expert in Roca fittings - and have established that the real key features are the location of the main hole, the distance between the two mounting holes, and, critically, the depth (front to back) of the unit as it needs to be slim. One other factor is the location of the water feed hole, as dependent upon the model of the potential replacement, I may need to have a side "feed" as per Antionio´s installation. A friend-of-a-friend is a plumber and mentioned he had a couple of cisterns in his workshop - and after a few weeks wait, he brought me one - one which, unfortunately fitted all the specs except for the depth. He then sent one he found in the Roca agency, but had ignored my request to check the space between the mounting holes as there weren´t any as it was a bloody wall mounted model. Now my local builder´s merchants have two or three demo models in their showroom and I think that one (or maybe two) will actually fit. I even took the tops off and checked the spec inside, which caused some consternación. Next I need to try to talk them into letting me bring one home to test (the problem will be in separating it from the bowl in the shop), but permission is the first step. Today I shall check the specs on the website for the identified models, then next week make the request. Nuclear option is to replace the whole system in the basement with a new white one, then put the "Antionio" cistern in the guest bathroom (where it is well hidden in a corner), then put the guest one in my bathroom. Why are toilets such a pain in the ..... + Well - over the weekend I built spreadsheet (who me?) of potential slim models and how the fittings worked. It came down to two potential models, one of which was in the display area at San Anton, albeit with a side water entry I did my arab stuff and spent two or 2 minutes bonding about trivia, then asked (new best mate) Antonio if a) they would sell the cistern separately and b) whether I could try it before buying. He said OK and no need to disassemble that one as he had one boxed in the store - and he even carried it to the car for me. Told him I´d be 20 minutes and went home and took it upstairs to test mountings, and, bloody hell, they are perfect and it even has a water feed in the bottom of this one. Thought I´d better install it to ensure it was OK, so with plumber´s mate G assisting, I got it installed muy rapido. Minor problemette with the feed tube which ended up being removed and reversed to make fitting easier (full removal allowed me to put the tank-end on first). Flushed with glee (and bog flushing too) I went back to pay, and in a fit of pure benevolence ´phoned my builder to ask him if he would like it against his account so he could get the VAT. He very happy with that, so asked Antonio to bill it to Ernesto but allow me to pay cash. No problem, says he, and that will get you his discount too!! I couldn´t quite work out how I had ended up with such a perfect model when nothing seemed to fit the specs online, as had found the specs on the website showed it as having wider bolt mounts - whereas reality was that they turned out to be the regular size. AND I even got all the internals as part of the deal - which was a blessing as the water release mechanism was marginally different. Well - bastardising / paraphrasing the old La Bamba lyrics - "yo soy fontanero, no capitan". Tra-La. Happy bogger blogger

There seems to be a problem in most countries in deciding the priority of the people who should receive the vaccine. Everyone seems fairly united in thinking that front-line medical staff, patients, care home workers, residents and elderly people in descending age are the first priority, but who should be next? So far, no one has come up with any rules, so I guess I will have to invent them. Occupation, Risk and Location are the keys I can see at first glance. Firstly, I would add all hospital staff (down to and and including cleaners - and the same for care and residential homes). Medical and quasi-medical staff who work one-to-one with patients (GPs, specialists, dentists, opticians, audioligists - and I guess their reception staff). The sick, pregnant and vulnerable have to be in about here (assuming they can be jabbed). Next workers who have to deal with multiple people as part of their "service" (police, fire, ambulance, prison warders, customs, passport control) Teachers - well I guess they come next, primarily to get the schools open (and then anyone else who works in a school I suppose) Then other people-facing people would be transport staff, supermarket check-out workers, and probably receptionists of any kind. Other staff working in positions where they come into contact with people would be waiters, general shop workers, hairdressers and staff in places like libraries. Bona-fide international business travellers should have the jab (but that means they will have to have a private sector allotment I assume) Workers who are residential have to be about here (oil-rigs and merchant marine spring to mind) Moving to the lower tiers, office workers are low on my list, as are school kids. Most university students seem so irresponsible it is almost not worth bothering with them, but they should be easy to get together so longs as the jabs aren´t administered in a lecture hall or anywhere named after a colonialist beneficiary. Now the locations - "go to places" like hospitals are obvious, as are police stations, fire and ambulance stations. Schools, transport hubs could be in that group, but then you probably get to having jab centres for the others to actually "come to" (thus the people who man those places too). Now we are just at anyone who works (and are still going down age groups in parallel) Anti-vaxxers should be facially tattooed Queue-jumpers should be imprisoned Politicians should be barred until all other categories of "public servants" have been treated Prisoners should be at the bottom of the pile Hmm - well it wasn´t quite as simple as I thought and I had to go back and reorder a couple of times - and I am sure I have left some groups out, but then it only took me 30 minutes. Obvious thing to do would be to "leak" it and see if any new groups(s) appeared or whether it was just the ones mentioned trying to climb higher in the ranking. Hell, I am becoming a cynic One thing is that I will have plenty of time to revisit the ranking - I reckon I will be lucky to see a needle before May and G will be a few weeks after that.

Well, they do actually have a word for it. The spanish "plan" for the roll-out of the vaccine has now been leaked out a bit - I hesitate to say released. In the first instance, the planning has been devolved to the regions, so there are many different ways of doing it. Secondly, and in a total master-stroke, they have decided that the different jabs from the varying manufacturers should be handled in different ways - thus the Pfizer (or is it Astra Zeneca?) vaccine should not be given to the over-55s, but may be administered to an alternate group of younger "priority" workers. They have brought every sort of care-worker and his/her/its charge into the higher level of the system (as almost every spanish resident of Mijas seems to walk with a stick and have a care-worker walking beside them, that is a lot here), with police, soldiers, firemen, teachers, etc next - but they also seem to have incorporated anyone who is connected to some of these people in some way. Probably "I am connected as I am his elected representative", or "I have been connected to him while dealing with paperwork for his house in the town hall". They have also ruled some people out of the list * Yesterday they were proudly announcing that the next phase of the roll-out would be for the "over 90s". Give me strength! (preferably for some months to come) * There is an alternative, but a bit drastic. One of my pals was tested positive after having a cough for a couole of weeks. He hid and isolated and coughed. Four weeks and he has been tested as clear and with antibodies (but his wife now has it) - but the roll-out will not include them as there may be "unknown effects" for "survivors" - (another bit of ofuscación) + getting muddier by the day - following the "jab the 90+ year olds", they are now reporting utilising the 100 jabs per day for teachers and military personnel. Our local non-councillor reported from the embassy on the many queries relating to people with private health insurance being incorporated into the scheme. Ever helful, the embassy mob eventually admitted they do not know. Brilliant (but not unexpected).

Since last Thursday (25th Feb), our little furry pal Tingucker, the last puss that lives at the stable, has been missing. It is not at all like him, but, having said that, he once went off and laid up for a couple of days when he had been injured by another animal. G has been leaving food, but it hasn´t been touched. We have been up on a few occasions during the day in case he had returned, but so far nothing at all. We can only hope that he has been frightened away by something and is holed-up on the mountain, but 3 days without food would be as much as he could stand before coming back to be fed. Not knowing where he is and whether he is injured is not very nice at all, but around here people go missing in the mountains on a regular basis - they actually have a "day of the disappeared" - and they are still out regularly searching for (the remains of) one guy after 10 years. Let´s just hope Tingy is ok and makes it back.

G was looking at an article in the local rag wherein they were saying the vaccine campaign in spain will probably roll on for a year. Bloody hell, most of the people in the UK will have had the 2021 winter booster by then. As predicted, there has been total obfuscation about who will get it when, but I think they are waiting for people to actually get to 90 before they give tham a jab. One lot who will not be getting it are the local wimp police force. Apparently they have decided to reject the Astra Zeneca jab on the grounds that "many recipients" have had side-effects such as dizziness, flu-like symptoms and a temperature. Bloody hell, if I don´t get any side effects I would start to think they had given me a placebo! They also mention soldiers getting it, or they did, as now they might decide it is too scary. Good job these wusses don´t have to have some of the jabs you need for Africa and Asia. Also God help them if the invasion of very bad mosquitoes happens as threatened - regular chloroquine would have them resigning en-mass. Can´t help but think it is all verbiage designed to obscure the total shambles which is the EU roll-out, combined with the equivalent shambles that is the spanish roll-out. What I can´t understand is how they managed to do the ´flu jab so efficiently (or maybe that really was a placebo).

All the patio and building work has been done and now we wait for the painter. I have never quite understood why builders can´t put on a couple of square feet of paint, but I guess there are (trades) unions here as there were in the UK in the 60s. New Dani, or Dani #4, (or Antonio as he is really known) came and did the remainder of the building work (putting some angled rebar in the patio corner wall) then went up aloft to do the satellite dish and replace tiles. Now I could understand builders not being roofers, but it turned out that this one is both, and a satellite engineer. Luckily a bit of a lightweight too, with a special technique to always put pressure on two adjacent tiles so as not to create more mayhem than replacements. Firstly he went up a ladder to take down the dish, but not before I got him to rope himself to the rejas outside my bedroom. It took a while to unbolt the dish, and no-one was sure what it might weigh as it had quite a sturdy mounting post, but eventually it was off - and on the way to "metal-mickie" who is our local scrap man. Next scurried aloft from the top patio, well, he was about to scurry aloft, but I insisted he put on a harness and had a rope attached. He agreed, then went up with a stack of tiles and some fixative (not cement, something special in a pistol-gripped tube with a long nozzle), then he disappeared for 15 minutes. I also wanted the chimney painting, and, showing my inability to learn practices, was still surprised to find it was not going to be him, but someone else was coming to paint the stack at a later date. Anyway, Antonio replaced the 3 ridge tiles that I had spotted - then a couple more I hadn´t, then said he just turned back over the ones that had turned-turtle in the gullies. (Note I had been up on the road with the "bins" and hadn´t managed to spot these issues, but then I am not a trained tiler). I reckon it took about 40 minutes in-all, then he was back safely, much to my relief (if not his - he seemed quite happy wandering the rooftop). Dani Dos had been assisting with ladder-holding and I was holding the rope, so we all contributed to the successful topping-out, but I relinquished my role as safety officer and dropped out of the subsequent demobilisation as they moved all their equipment to the gate, thence onto the lorry - a final brushing and hose around and then they were gone. Brilliant - no need to wake up at sparrow´s in order to open the gate for them and no need to be around in case they needed anything. Now I can get back to the serious work of trying to replace my (now out of production in model and / or colour) toilet cistern. Old age is catching up with the house as well as me.

Well, it wasn´t quite that, but we did spend 3 hours standing outside A&E (or Urgencias as it is known here) yesterday - then G had to go back today, and all-in-all it seems like a lost day. Luckily not for us, but a guy we know from Oman days, and who lives down on Mijas Golf. Yesterday about 3, he phoned and was struggling to speak. G recognised the word stroke, so we rocketed down there. Luckily he had been able to open the gate and front door, but was in a bad way. G had phoned her nursie pal as we drove down and she said get him to A&E as fast as possible - which we did, after spending nearly 15 minutes trying to stop him staggering around collecting things. At the A&E I managed to get him into a wheelchair and an orderly took him into the triage centre - G was allowed in, but then sent out with some of his clothes and his phone. We were advised to wait outside, which we did for nearly 3 hours, when I gave up and went back to reception to ask what was going on. The woman was not at all helpful and said we would just have to wait. I pointed out that I was the driver, not family. and we wanted to know whether he would be in overnight and whether we should leave and ´phone in the morning She refused to tell me anything on "data protection" grounds, which really p***d me off, but luckily G recognised a doctor having a fag outside and he told me they had done a CT scan, that it wasn´t serious, but they would keep him in for observation. We left, but just as we got home, he phoned and demanded (literally) that I take his phone and clothes back to him. We put them in a bag with his name and I took them back and handed them to a (luckily different) receptionist who took them in to him. Bugger me, I hadn´t gone a mile when he phoned again complaining that his specs weren´t there. I did actually stop the car and have a look, but not there, so told him "tough" and went home to call his family in Saudi and the Channel Islands and tell them the score. This morning, we found his specs and G took them in to him. He is almost back to 100%, so with luck it will have just been a warning shot across the bows. * Being elderly and solo in Spain is not recommended, not is the attitude of the Xanit receptionist. Why the hell they don´t have a disclaimer about releasing status data that patients can sign at reception I do not know - other than they don´t need it for spanish patients as you can guarantee they will go in mob-handed with family. Having a friend who is a qualified nurse and who speaks fluent spanish is definitely recommended though. ... and I waited all afternoon for the request to be taken home, then found they had kept him in for another night. Today, his son informed me that he was getting out in the afternoon, so waited for the request again, only to get a text at 1600 saying he was at home. Seems he has been very lucky with the stroke - and he knows it - and was keen enough to get away from the hospital that he grabbed the nearest taxi when they said he could go. .. and while he was in the hospital, he blagged someone into booking him in with the other specialists he had been trying to get to see for various issues. Pretty quick on the uptake there, so no problem with the brain function! * just heard today that after an MRI scan he has been given a clean bill of health and they are classifying it as a TIA - which means you and they know something happened, but with all their equipment they couldn´t find anything wrong. Naturally he is pretty ecstatic!

Yesterday was all about cement. The lads spent the whole day mixing and spreading cement as the new foundation. About the only building adage I know is "3 of sand to 1 of cement", but it never mentioned the water. While I watched, they started with about 3 gallons of water, then 1 sack of cement, followed by about 30 shovels of sand. I was thinking that 10 shovels must equate to one sack, but then they threw my calculations by adding a few shovels more when it was almost mixed. No matter, Pedro brought some tubing to put the cable in and reconnected it all - before burying it under a couple of tons of cement. The tube part of it should enable us(?) to get at the cable in the future should we need to - and that might be important as we weren´t in a position to test it, other than for me to note that the right hand gate-pillar light still didn´t work. Today we (ownership) have put the edging stones along the gash in the lawn and even started to put down some of the patio tiles. I also had a ´phone call from my pal to tell me that he had in his possession a cistern for me to try to fit in my bathroom. Only been waiing for that for a month, so am not rushing for flushing.

I can remember when I was one of the Quality Management courses that there was a tale of how Komatsu set out to be the number one earth moving company in the world - a position held at that time by Caterpillar. They wanted a simple aspirational slogan to motivate the workforce and eventually came up with "beat cat". They obviously did, as today I did not have a (bob)cat scratching up the soil in my garden, but a Komatsu. And boy, was it efficient. Driven (almost played) by my neighbour´ s gardener "Magic Mike" (so named as he has a penchant for getting his kit off while working). In about 4 hours, he dug (well,they dug) out a patch 15 metres by 1.5 and to a depth of almost a foot (notice how seamlessly I switch between units). In addition, they knocked 5 feet off the centre flower bed. Ernesto reckoned it would have taken his guys almost a couple of days to move it all, so we are well ahead of the game and already have all the re-bar, edging stones and tiles, plus a large quantity of sand and cement on site. Let refilling commence. For the first time in ages I actually took care when I was putting the car away, as doing the 3-point turn, the back end was perilously close to the temporary hole / drop-off from the old patio - and going into that would have caused some serious damage. Talking of damage, Magic Mike did manage to pull up one of my electrical cables - he/they avoided the sewage pipe and water pipes I had cautioned them about, but a cunningly laid cable got tangled, dragged out, and snapped. We spent a good 30 minutes trying to work out what was on the cable and where it originated (I knew which fuse it was on, as that tripped). We were still wondering when MM dug out another bit of cable and we realised that the route was not from the first point of cutting to the house, rather it was a loop snaking under the drive and going from the centre bed to one of the gate posts. Rejoining the ends will be left for tomorrow. In addition to moving all the spoil to Ernesto´s lorry, MM also deposited about a cubic metre of soil in the middle of the garden. Ever-thoughtful, I have kept some soil to ensure G can maintain her new hobby of riddling.

Had a visitor yesterday morning when I was starting to tidy up the "new" flower beds. This little butterfly came and had a close look at the tiling and brickwork - and seemed to find it acceptable. I think it is a plain old-fashioned red-admiral - of the type we used to chase when we were kids in the UK. He obviously knew that his red would match well with the terracotta - or maybe he was finding something to digest on the surface which had recently been washed-down. The lower terrace (as it may well be known) is now 99% finished, so I put some soil back into the beds - but not in the centre bed where I put a few bricks to show where the "lime bearr" may well be going to live (or may be exchanged for something a bit more sturdy?). Took the photograph and then realised that I had a funny angle that makes everything look lop-sided (but it isn´t ). Actually think it will make a really good sunbathing spot (and maybe why the butterfly was checking it out) G has found a new hobbie and has been riddling the soil we had left over from the re-turfing. What she delivers is beautiful fine stuff that would cost a fortune (were you able to buy it). 20 years I have had had jimmy-the-riddle, without ever having much cause to use it, but now it is indispensable. It will come into more use next week too, as, while the guys are here with all their equipment, we have decided to widen the front drive by about 5 feet. It will make it much easier for us to turn the cars around, especially when the drive is full of builders vehicles and equipment (somehow I now realise that I am doing something to facilitate the people who are doing it). What the hell, we need more soil to riddle.

Most of my friends know my views on Gibraltar, but it got two positive points within the last 24 hours. A girl ´phoned me from one of my banks there and told me she was my "new" relationship manager. Nice to have a bank that actually gives a s**t, even if they don´t have a decent ´phone app yet. She was very friendly and chatty and during the conversation she mentioned that she actually lived in Gib and that her parents had already had the jab. I was impressed, but as G pointed out, they were being treated as if they were the UK, so speeding along with the vaccine (or vac-seen as I keep hearing it pronounced on tv). In today´s press, the junta were trumpeting the fact that they were moving on to vaccinating the over-80s (unsurprisingly ran out of over-90s fairly quickly) and that they were planning to achieve up to one hundred per day in Mijas. Bloody yippee. The following paragraph stated that Mijas had started vaccinating the over-90s yesterday, so either there were less than 100 over-90s in the municipality, or the report was garbage. Garbage is my bet. We only have 85000 residents in all, with a fair proportion of them elderly. On a "normal" distribution, this puts about 8500 in each of the over 70s and over 80s, so I guess I can expect my call in somewhere around 100 days time. That almost exactly corresponds with my original estimate of "maybe before June if we are lucky". Bloody hell, I might get a call from Gibraltar before that as I have money that is resident there. .... but I bet the spanish are seriously p***d off at Gib being ahead of them

Tomorrow morning* my builders are coming in and will be turning this patch of (not-so-very) verdant sward into a tiled patio. Why? Well, more a case of why not? Apart from being a place to dump the water at pool cleaning time, it is just a patch that requires mowing and looking after - so we decided to get it patio-tiled to match the terracotta around it, but also to put in three semi-circular beds for the plants you can see, and a round bed in the centre which is intended to take my "new" lime tree. There are a variety of other tasklets to be undertaken while they are on-site, but this is the main one. Yesterday the builder and his chief brickie turned up and quite subtly talked me into making the patio flat, rather than sloping as with the path in the lower part of the picture. It does make more sense and will make the centre bed look better - and hopefully should only result in about 6" of a wall between the left hand edge and the sloping path by the wall. That´s the plan. I guess I will think it is a good one until the first time I trip over / fall off the raised bit (maybe a lurid yellow painted stripe as a warning?). "We" are hoping to take the turf from the left hand side and re-use it in the "orchard" - more in hope than expectation, as the area has proved a plant-graveyard for years (but my new gardener has brought some evil stuff to help feed the grass and kill the spiders and weeds, plus some stuff to fumigate the citrous trees.) If he proves right on those issues, he could well end up maintaining my grapevine which has been neglected for far too long. More to be reported as it happens. + I had mentioned to them the possibility of rain on Monday and Tuesday, but was assured it meant nothing to their work, but then * Pouring down on Monday so they called and deferred the start. Shame they didn´t come at 1230 when it became beautiful for the rest of the day. Then they called at 0735 on Tuesday saying it was likely to rain, so deferred to tomorrow (again). Called and booked some firewood, but bloke called later and said they thought it would rain later, "so not today". What on earth is going on down here? Are we going to get some biblical storm, or just the couple of hours of light drizzle shown on the weather apps?. But then the woodman turned up - seems his whatsapp text had a few typos and my translation app didn´t spot them (!). Good job it wasn´t a spanish medical issue. ++ well, a week has gone by and all the turf has been removed (and relayed and trodden down and watered etc) and the rebar and cemnt went down all day Friday. Beneath that they installed me a tube between the pool-house and the "parcela" next door which will allow me to shove the water out of the way when I clean the pool - water that peviously went on the lawn. I even had to spray the concrete over the weekend as well as the turf because the weather was that good . Today we start on the real patio tiling, so more pictures anon. This was (almost) close-of-play at 1530 on Friday. Timed to perfection for a 1600 finish. Now mid-week of second week and it is taking shape ... and this is what happened to the old turf (needs some serious treading-in) .... and while I was there, I heard a noisy bee on the grapefruit blossom