Events seem to of overtaken my planned summery of the last few days. I hope everyone down in London is safe. I'll not be trying to contact people via the phone for the time being but please use email and/or comments to let people know your ok.

I woke up at 6.30 this morning so I could be outside B&Q first thing so I could fix up the cistern and turn the water back on. Despite its super store status it didn't have any ball cock valves with shorter arms. Instead I went for a …

Got home this evening to find the bathroom cistern had flooded again. Halfway through replacing the aging ball-cock mechanism I discovered the new arm is too long. I've had to shut off the water for the time being and face a denial am visit to B&Q in the morning …

Forgetting Live-8 and Katy's housewarming was on led to a very compressed Saturday in which my main achievement was fixing the dishwasher. Thanks to Andy's AA membership we also managed to get my car jump started which was a relief. I now have to take it for a drive at …

Amongst the easier parts of yesterdays proceedings was identifying the leak that has made my kitchen wall wet. It looks as though the overflow pipe on the upstairs toilet is right on the cusp of the fill level. I assume this has been the case for a while as the …