08.01.2009 - 3:39 p.m.

I've been a proper home owner now for two years, before that was all house share, now i'm actually responsible for the building i live in. It's a pretty good house for the area and has everything we need. I'm also pretty handy with the old DIY, mainly prompted by my desire to save munny where possible, so i have no problem getting down a dirty provided I know what i'm doing or have had a grown-up explain it to me / draw a picture. This goes as far as big stuff like fitting new and improved 8 inch joists in the attic which was a bitch of a job but now means the attic is insulated and clean and we can store lots of junk up there too.

Late at night when you're lying in bed listening to to the house, the creaks, pops and various noises houses make, there's one noise over all that is guaranteed to make my blood run cold

drip

drip

drip

drip

I've become so attuned to this sound that i'll wake up from asleep upon receiving the dripping noise in my ears (my hearing is also very sensitive), here's my rundown of hateful, water-based, homeowning shittyness in descending order of effort required to fix / sense of impending DIY doom upon encountering leak :

Woken up at night by a dripping sound in the kitchen downstairs, find water leaking from a lightfitting in the ceiling, necessitating lifting the entire bathroom floor above the kitchen to find the leak which was coming from the water feed to the toilet. Had a near miss with the same pipe when chopping out the woodwork to get to the pipe, luckily i didn't puncture it or i'd have had to replace more pipe than originally necessary. (Will have to re-lift the bathroom floor again to get to crappy recessed ceiling-lights in kitchen which are all failing / falling apart)

Woken up by dripping coming through the bathroom ceiling, leak found to be coming from header tank for central heating in attic, i called out a plumber on our household insurance emergency number for this one, he fixed it in 15 minutes, still had to pay the call-out fee though, but at least i didn't have to find the plumber in the first place.

Expanding bubble of paint on radiator turns out to have lots of water in it, popping the bubble allows water to spray into bathroom from the pinhole that's rusted through from the inside, easily stopped by turning the taps on each side of the radiator. Replacing radiator with identical model made more complicated by the fact they'd not welded the hanging brackets straight on the back of the rad, meaning i have to get out trusty 'Junior hacksaw' and cut lumps out of wall bracket until rad hangs straight.

Woken up to hear dripping coming from the bedroom, our crappy old aluminium windows collect condensation (and therefore mould) with alarming speed, large amount of condensation had pooled on windowsill and was dripping onto carpet, was able to remedy with a towel.

It's just not funny any more, if there's a domestic version of PTSD i'm sure i've got it.

Of course this is just annoying, irritating and sometimes expensive homeowner stuff compared to really dangerous 'nearly being killed by flying cars' brand of homeowner headaches, which is thankfully far rarer.

[image not found]
because it's on my other computer, it's all very well skiving at work, but when the images you need are at home on the laptop....

I make no effort to hide my appreciation of 'real' women (by 'real' i mean properly shaped females with curves, not "in contrast to dolls, be they 'real' or inflatable") some of my friends take an opposite tack and have silly ideas about flat stomachs, thin legs and big tits making women attractive, this, as we all know is rubbish. Yes she may have the figure of a teenage boy + tits, but there seems to be a disproportionately high number of slim women who also come with mental issues making them attractive propositions from across the room, but the morning after, waking up with her leads into a dangerous alley of mind games and sociopathic behaviour, until she is finally gone, but she's never gone is she...

As part of one of B3ta's image challenges, this time featuring Unlikely Adverts, the image below comes courtesy of Ellie Bates (i think) and sums things up nicely

"Fancy a pie luv ?"

Anyway, at least one person in a relationship should be curvy, otherwise pelvis clash ensues (admittedly this is from a straight perspective), and lets be honest it's better that the bloke has a flat stomach. Women can be curvy, Rubenesque, voluptuous and a host of other descriptive adjectives i can't think of right now that flatter their desirable form, but a fat bloke is a fat bloke, there's no getting away from it.

"You show that burger who's boss"

Of course there is a vocal and well established body of women who like 'Bears', just proves that somewhere there is someone for everyone, you just gotta find 'em

It doesn't mean they're in the same country as you though, get off your fat arse and go find them.