Not the best of days...

...but equally, I don't feel nearly so annoyed by today's events as I might normally do. Not sure why that is - maybe I'm just past caring and looking forward to Christmas.

We flew back from Miami on Sunday evening, getting into Heathrow early yesterday morning. Adrian's driver was waiting for him to take him back to Southampton, but instead of going with him, Rob and I got the train into London because Rob arranged to see a client today, and I had a meeting this morning. We spent most of yesterday catching up on e-mails and sleeping. I got up early this morning and went to the gym, then turned on my computer to check what time my meeting was - and saw an e-mail from the girl I was due to meet saying she was off sick and would have to reschedule. So I'd spent the last 24 hours in London unnecessarily, and could have been at home sorting out the mounds of washing and ironing I have to do before leaving here on Friday for Christmas.

So I got the tube to Waterloo, and the train back home. I spent a few minutes sorting through a week's worth of post, then went upstairs to check out the bathroom. Hmm. In the last week all they had done was fit the toilet roll holder, towel rail and cabinet to the wall. There was still no shower head, and there were no spotlights in the ceiling, just the old lampshade. I called Tony, the Project Manager, and was told that he was off till January, but Pam told me the shower head was due to be fitted today and the electrician would be in on Thursday to sort out the lights. She did at least tell me the truth when I asked why hardly anything had happened for the past week - that she didn't know - instead of waffling away a response that didn't actually answer my question. The shower was fitted while I was out this afternoon, so that's something.

The first time we turned the heating on in this house, when it first started getting cold after the summer, we found a puddle in the kitchen - the radiator was leaking from a tiny hole in the bottom. We turned that radiator off, which means it's always cold in the kitchen now. Then the day before we went to Florida we were out all afternoon Christmas shopping, and got back to find the carpet in the downstairs toilet soaked through, because the radiator in there was leaking. This afternoon I got back to find a dirty wet patch on the carpet in the landing, and a plastic box catching drips from the radiator. The guy who came to fit the shower head noticed that this radiator was also leaking and turned it off and put the box there. Straight after New Year we'll have to get someone in to look at the whole central heating system - I have a feeling all the radiators will need replacing...