The last two weeks just gush past ... no really

Oh dear, two weeks since the last blog, been busy, and not enthused to get
on with tapping on the keyboard. There again perhaps I just wanted to blot
out the happenings of our 3rd week in the house and move swiftly onto the
fourth!!

We are nearly sorted in the house now, kind of. Just a few wee jobs to get
finished and we will finally have a build free environment for a while until
we decide to push on with the next build phase. Silly things are holding us
up at the moment, 3rd party suppliers, but this week coming should put a
tick against virtually all of our outstanding items. The big effort for us
personally is to get some collection of large bulky items done in Mufasa.
Fridge, lounge chairs, shower door, and dining table on the list this week.
Well assuming that our fridge is available. It was ordered back in Feb and
Sue has been fighting with the shop to get stock available for us to collect
down in Durban. Long story, but we are hoping that one is now there with our
name on, unless they sell it to someone else in the meantime, and a final
call tomorrow morning should confirm that, or not! The fun is going to be
fitting things in Mufasa's load bay. With the help of some of the builders
this week we will get the canopy off giving us the space we need, and then
it will be furniture removal African style. Watch this space!! Our Telkom
landline is on order. Well we think it is. Might get some action on that
this week too. Takes 2-3 weeks to process the order, and then some more time
to actually do anything about it. The question of availability of ADSL still
needs to be answered but is a no brainer I think as our neighbours have it,
but you never know. No ADSL and we will not bother with a landline. Simple!

As to the happenings of week 3. A fair disaster, but could have been many
times worse. We are still slowly getting the Rayburn installed. Water and
Flue on the 'To Do' list. The first objective, get the water tank etc. all
plumbed in. Took a day or so, but eventually with a few goes and the odd
change of plan it was 90% done come Thursday. The water tank for the Rayburn
was up and full. The links to the hot water system and Geyser in place, just
the flue to be done. Also that Wednesday and Thursday we had the wooden
skirting fitted and painted. Looks really nice despite the house being in a
mess with everything we have stacked in the middle of the lounge to give
access for the skirting to be done. Anyway, Thursday evening we sit down to
dinner, glass of wine, very stressful few days getting the job done. Dinner
finished, watching a bit of TV. BANG!. What the F***? Look around, water
gushing out of the Rayburn. OMG! Looking back I think we handled it quite
well, although the odd moment of 'what can I do to stop it' type panic was
thrown in to the mix every now and then. Mains water quickly turned off.
Attempts to drain the whole system externally failing as the Rayburn is the
lowest point. We spent the next hour or so frantically fighting a battle
with brooms diverting the water out of any door possible. The water ran from
the Rayburn in the middle of the house everywhere, end to end, damming up in
the bedroom. We ended up with not only the Rayburn hot water tank of 100+
litres gushing out but also via some strange back feed the 150 litres in the
Geyser too! Thankfully we had kept all the packing paper from our shipping
and we used many a sheet of that to stem and soak up the water. The under
floor heating had its first use trying to fight the damp and dry floors off.
We managed to migrate everything standing in water to the sunroom in between
frantic sweeping of water.

Apart from some very damp skirting, great timing getting that put in, and
the odd soggy box we escaped without any real damage. One advantage of not
having any sofa or chairs yet, they would have been a wet mess. As disasters
go it was a mere teardrop to the scale of Japan, but to us it was very real
and bloody annoying. We think the problem was the back water tank in the
Rayburn splitting. It was the original tank and we thought it was fine, told
it was fine, who knows. It had not been a good week for water consumption.
With all the plumbing of installing it and then the loss of the water in it
we must have blown several hundred litres of water. As to a plan going
forward. I think the heating of water via the Rayburn is off the agenda. We
could get the tank in the Rayburn replaced with a new one, but at a fair
cost. Anyway, we don't think we could sleep at night worrying about whether
it would blow again. I am just glad I did not go cycling with the club that
afternoon and evening otherwise poor Sue would have been on her own fighting
it!

This week just gone has been quiet. The house to ourselves for a while,
which has been nice, waiting for the final push to get the outstanding jobs
list all ticked off. We are hoping that this coming week should get us home
and dry on most things, we shall see. Getting the flue in for the Rayburn
should be an interesting trick, need to keep a good eye and control over
that one!!