Happiness is a crossed-off list!

I had planned to work on SISP's website today but didn't get around to it. When I took my washing up to the line on the roof this morning I found the lid of my water tank open and no one in sight. I was furious and told the owner in no uncertain terms that this was not acceptable. She muttered something about the tank needing cleaning but it only needed cleaning because her bloody family stick dirty buckets in it! We did clean it, as it happens, but after I'd calmed down I also told her I would fit a tap to her tank and she agreed. I had a look at her tank and found it was nearly empty, meaning that I could do the work without dumping too much clean water. To cut a long story short I got and fitted a nice brass lever tap and it works fine. It does drip a little from the tap thread because, although I used PTFE tape, I couldn't tighten it sufficiently without spanners. I'll keep an eye on it - it might just resolve itself (there's optimism for you!).

Some of the plastic fittings needed solvent and so they needed to be very clean. After washing the algae off the existing pipes I used one of my Dish Mate scouring pads to lightly abrade it, and a damned fine job it did too! Here's a photo of the packaging - attractive woman, huh?!

On the way to the town I passed the Hindu temple and decided to have a chat with a committee member. It was one of those conversations where you think you're getting through only to find after five minutes that they haven't really understood a thing. When I mentioned loudspeakers he immediately rushed off to turn on the temple's PA system and, with it, the horrible squawking noise resumed! I tried to speak in a quiet voice to make the point that the noise made it impossible to hold conversations but, unfortunately, his hearing was incredible - either that or he was lip-reading! I think I eventually got through to him that I wasn't moaning about the regular sounds, but rather it was when they have a celebration and stick speakers in the tree a few metres from my lug holes! He told me I should speak with the secretary of the place tonight at 19:30 (when it's pitch black) but he also happened to mention that the next celebration was on 3rd April or thereabouts - which is the day I fly back to the UK!

These two things have, up till today, been bugging me, but I feel a weight has been lifted. Maybe I'll be less of a rat-bag now! The rest of the day was spent catching up on emails. Amazing how long that takes, but again it feels good to have answered them all.