Faulty appliances and potty training
Happy New Year!
I’m not one for new year’s resolutions - too much pressure to do something I know will be difficult. So whilst the idea of making a resolution to regularly post Jerry diary updates fleetingly scampered across my synapses, the feeling passed very quickly. I have however heard through the grapevine (Mrs A) that some readers have enquired whether I had given up the diary. The answer? No - not given up, taken a short sababitcal. But I’ve missed it too, so let’s see how we get on - I won’t promise a weekly Saturday morning post - and they may be irregular (I hear that happens as you get older) but I will be writing them.
Anyway, excuses and whining out of the way, I guess it’s time to catch up a little - What’s been happening with Little Ray of Sunshine I hear you asking!
We’ll get to that in a minute, first the big mystery of the Christmas break - why does everything pack up at Christmas? I don’t mean our neighbours (though most of them do seem to pach up and vanish for a few days at this time or year), I mean appliances.
The first one to go was the kettle. The old one had more or less boiled its last. It had been running out of steam for a while - the switch at the bottom that starts it boiling fell off a while ago, leaving a little stump - this still worked, but it’s just a bit too close to the metal body of the kettle, which gets very hot, so you have to be careful. Then the lid stopped opening properly, so it was time for a replacement.
I started searching for a kettle online. Something which I thught would take a couple of minutes, but the range of kettles is now completely bewildering. Not only are there different styles and colours, not to mention a few brands cashing in on their ‘prestige’ (SMEG I’m looking at you), with ludicrous price tags, the real surprise was that kettles now have ‘features’.
They didn’t used to have features - they just boiled water. These days there are kettles that have a diffuser in - so you can make tea in the kettle! Yeuchh!
Then there are the ones that allow you to choose what temperature to heat the water to, and some will hold it at that temperature (presumably until the water has all evaporated) then their automatic ‘boil dry fail safe’ cuts out.
More than that, we now have the ‘internet of things’ (IoT), with the most menial of appliances connected to the internet. This opens a world of possibilities, such as your fridge doing your shopping for you as soon as it notices you’re getting low on your favourite probiotic yoghurt or that you’ve run out of mayonaise.
In the kettle department, IoT means some kettles have bluetooth and talk you your Alexa or whatever other Russian/Chinese surveillance device you might have connected to your home network. So you can now tell the kettle to boil to whatever temperature you want from the comfort of your armchair / bed / bath etc. Provided of course that you remembered to fill it up last time you were in the kitchen. I haven’t yet found a kettle that can take itself to the sink, run the tap for a few seconds to fill it up and then put itself on to boil, although there are ‘system’s which are plumbed in and hold constantly boiling water that you can access through a special tap - which sounds like a scalding waiting to happen.
Anyway I finally settled on a kettle, which Argos delivered to my Sainsbury’s local store by 4pm on Christmas Eve, from whence (it is Christmas after all, so a ‘whence’ is justified) I collected it before everything closed for the festivities. No bluetooth, but a choice of temperatures, which I’m still working out what they are all for.
Next to break down was Hija’s boiler. This meant our daughter and graddaughter were to spend a slightly extended stay with us over Christmas, as the next available repair man wasn’t going to show until New Year’s Eve.
Hija had decided that this break was the ideal opportunity to try potty training 2.0. We had an attempt earlier in the year (you might remember I wrote about it), but it turned out to be too soon, too many accidents and was postponed until a more suitable time.
Which turned out to be Christmas. They arrived with a car full of gear, presents, toys and a potty, which is in the shape of a mini toilet, complete with flush sound effect.
It started out pretty well, but required half hourly “Do you need a wee” reminders to avoid accidents. These were fortunately few and mainly on hard floors, making them easy to clean up, however there was one valedictory wee just before they left at the top of the stairs, too soon before we left for our New Year break, so I will be carpet cleaning when we return home after New Year.
Hijo also stayed with us for Christmas, but as he started his new job in Radio in September, he’s drawn the short straw for the shift patterns over Christmas. He worked Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing day, though the Christmas day shift was 11am -7pm, so we shifted Chistmas dinner to coincide with his arrival back from work.
It’s always fun having a child in the house at Christmas - they haven’t forgotten the magic and LRS kept us all entertained, playing with a selection of new toys representing a good range of gender stereotypes, to avoid her being, well….. gender stereotyped. So a toy vacuum cleaner was balanced by a toy workbench, spanners, nuts and bolts. Her dolly (who is also potty training) is balanced by toy cars on a rug with a street layout.
On Boxing day I noticed the temperature indicator on the fridge was flashing. After a quick google, I discovered this meant it wasn’t holding down the fridge temperature and that our vast mountain of pigs in blankets, pork stuffing and left over turkey (actually a capon rather than a turkey - smaller and easier to cook, but don’t tell anyone) were all in jeopardy!
A reboot didn’t do the trick, and because our fridge is pre-Internet of Things, it hadn’t notified me there was a problem until…. there was a problem. Neither was it able to call a repairman to get itself fixed or even to diagnose the exact cause of the fault.
As we had plans to go away for New Year, there was no opportunity to get a repairman out to fix it, so I bagged up the left-overs into batches and put them in the freezer, which thankfully is still working.
We’re now in Llandrindod Wells (the location of an earlier post and the nappygeddon scene, which I can’t erase from my memory) - we booked a new year package at the Metropole hotel here, which has been very pleasant - no cooking required and anything that breaks down is someone else’s problem.
I’m writing this on New Year’s day after a walk round the local lake in a fine drissle that wasn’t forecast. Last night was good fun with a six course meal followed by a long chat with some local farmers who’d come in to the hotel for a drink (not happy with Rachel from accounts’ new policies on inheritance tax) followed by a disco run by a DJ with a limited set of tunes many of which he repeated, with scant regard for the ‘feedback loop’ (the number of people on the dancefloor), but every now and again he played ‘a banger’ that we got up and danced to.
The great thing about staying in the party venue is that after midnight, you can get back to your room in minutes and hit the sack before the smoke from the fireworks has dispersed.
So we’re now in that little oasis between the festive period and going back to work, where I have a few minutes to myself to write!
That’s it for now - have a good ‘un (week, month, 2025!)
I’ll be back soon
Jerry