Well, well, well, it’s October

[Rwth of Cornovii]

Let's hope your neighbours take it seriously.

[An Tarbh Dubh]

Let's hope your neighbours take it seriously.

That reminds me of an "incident" at our home in Dublin, many years ago (before I was married). Shortly after we'd moved, my dad was investigating pipes and things leading into the house under the front doorstep, and found a somewhat rusted, elderly looking cast-iron pipe that appeared to dead-end under the floor in the hallway. It was quite separate to the gas and water. Thinking it might be useful as a conduit to lead wires under the doorstep, he drilled into it ... and was greeted with a loud hissing, and a strong smell of gas! I was just arriving home, and my mum and myself decided over Dad's objections that he could "fix this himself" (he'd "plugged" it by leaving the drill-bit in the hole, bandaged up with insulating tape), that we really should call the gas board ... so I did.

20 minutes later an engineer from the gas board arrived ... he said most reported "leaks" were actually dead rodents, or other things. He said by now he could tell the difference between a dead mouse and a dead rat ... sniff sniff .... THAT'S GAS! Dad had found (and drilled into) a part of the old Victorian gas network, that the gas board didn't have ANY maps or details of - and that clearly was still connected into the (recently replaced and upgraded) natural gas network! Declared as a "class A uncontrolled gas leak", work crew arrives within minutes, and after a night's work the ancient connection had been located and disconnected.

The most annoying part of this was, I was a smoker at the time ... and had to go right down to the end of the street to light up

[Rwth of Cornovii]

I'm glad you had the inner wisdom to call the Gas Board. You were probably already wised up to basic self preservation. I take it that your dad wasn't an employee of said august body.

Being Tuesday, Cassie has been on another jaunt. I heard the back door close after she'd come back in from first airing, and I had gone back to bed. I dreamed she'd gone missing, and woke to find her bed empty. Little devil had nipped out before the door had closed.

[goodlookingone]

Looks like the gas mender/pneumatic driller, had used the No Smoking Board to stop people falling down the hole he had dug. At some time the official sniffer was satisfied and had the hole backfilled and levelled with fca.
I'm not too disatisfied as the clumsy repair, because I am trying to get the council re-pave the courtyard because tree roots have risen flagstones to a series of rocking see-saws... When I was unwell last year my "Carer" told the estate managers that it was a fall danger outside a vulnerable (Me) elder. I doubt if the repair contractor (Which is the County workforce) now that local council changed the addresses...

[An Tarbh Dubh]

No, Dad qualified as an engineer, then became a teacher - teaching secondary school science to "intermediate" level and physics to senior level. He had unbounded curiosity and a desire to poke into the inner workings of just about everything, but with a slight tendency not to consider potential consequences fully. At his funeral, I recounted the story of his investigation into the then-new, fancy multi-journey rail tickets ... long, skinny pieces of card which you inserted into the ticket machine, which then took a "bite" out of one side, and printed a timestamp (thus, journey record went from the bottom of the ticket up). He poked and prodded, using meters, and found they had electrically conductive stripes on the back - so, having carefully measured the resistance, he then tried extending these stripes with comparably-resistive graphite. Yep, it worked; then, he wondered how far the machine would take bites out of the ticket. It was only later, over dinner, that he speculated about how he would have had a job explaining travelling on a 10-journey ticket with 13 or 14 journey time-stamps on it to a ticket inspector, should one have appeared!

[Rwth of Cornovii]

He sounds like someone full of fun. Maybe he only tried these ideas out in his head, mostly. You seem to have inherited your mother's caution. But a sense of adventure is good too.

I'm glad they have sorted out your gas leak at home GLO, wherever that may be. A moveable feast, in more ways than one. Your best bet is someone who knocks on doors and offers to put down half a tank of tarmac on your drive. You could then pay him half.

[goodlookingone]

No drive here: this is aPedestrian Estate... That will be my nesxy/last move: to have a house with a garage.