Free stuff!!!

Giving away free stuff has been pretty much a success today at work (and I've always wanted to send an email with a subject line of "Free stuff!!!"). Phones, microwave oven, sandwich maker, CD player, shredder, iron, kettle, router, USB hub and the printer were snapped up within minutes of the email going out. But is it really so that 15" CRT monitors are so out that no one wants them, even for free? It's nice enough monitor and it works... but then again I don't want to keep it either so maybe it's not such a big wonder.

Brits also never admit being cold, so our lovely fan heaters were not wanted either - however they saved us several times, especially at the Hockerill Street flat that was just too big and leaky to be heated up with few radiators (great flat otherwise). Our current flat is pretty warm (we've even got double glazing), so we haven't needed the heaters lately, especially since we got the radiator working in the living room and the study... except the bedroom that doesn't have have a radiator of any kind. This is because we live in a Edwardian town house that has been coverted into flats - we occupy the first floor that originally used to have probably two rooms, and has been divided into five (two bedrooms, living room, bath room and a kitchen). Because of some miscarrige of design they didn't put a radiator into the large bedroom when the building was refurbished.

In a way this is a good time to leave as we're starting to experience some probelms to do with the house and the age is probably starting to show. We knew that the plumbing was a bit on the weak side, when last year our beloved upstairs neighbour, the DIY man decided to unblock his drain and poured his bath tub full of acid. I noticed something was wrong when black gooey stuff started dripping from the ceiling that in few minutes turned into a flood. It was fixed, but since then I've been suspicious about the cracks... Last month our downstairs neigbour complained about a leaking ceiling one morning when I was taking a shower, and the same thing happened to us too, this time the DIY man was just in a bath. So obviously there are going to be big issues with the plumbing in the near future.