The opening of the envelope.

[blackberry44]

Sometime within the last fortnight John had a letter in a brown envelope from the tax man.

In accordance with his normal method of resisting bad news, he stuffed it in a drawer and tried to forget about it, but he was unsuccessful because it gave him nightmares.  Finally, on Saturday morning he screwed up his courage to open it and found not what

Comments

[cat63]

he stuffed it in a drawer and tried to forget about it

Silly boy!

I mean, I can understand the feeling, but the taxman is not, alas, one to go away if you ignore him.

Oh well, at least it turned out to be good news after all!

So I've compromised by putting it on for an hour and a half in the morning, only not all at once, but half an hour on, half an hour off and so on

If John's refund proves to be insufficient to get the roof fixed, perhaps some thermostatic radiator valves might be a possibility?

[blackberry44]

Thermostatic valves! Now there's a good idea!

[cat63]

I asked Rob about ours and he says he thinks the valves themselves were only about £15 apiece, but the main cost involved is having the system drained down so that they can be fitted (and of course Getting A Little Man In to do it...)

[caerleon]

Bah.. it's not hard to do.. a bit of hosepipe on to the drain cock, turn off boiler, turn off header feed, open drain cock, open bleed valves on radiators, wait for water to stop running, change valves, close drain cock close *all* bleed valves (important this fx: sheepish look) add anti-corrosion gunk to hot water header, bleed radiators, turn on boiler and check for leaks, bleed radiators again, job's a good'un..

[hooloovoo_42]

Huzzah! The Taxman isn't always a Bad Thing.

I've had the heating on for a couple of hours a day for the last few weeks. I turned it on early yesterday afternoon, as the house was too cold for me to sit around, even with an extra jumper on.

[g8bur]

I'm glad John's tax letter contained a pleasant surprise rather than an unpleasant one. I've just had an unexplained refund from them too, about which I'll have to write to them as it makes no sense at all - I hadn't had any taxable income during the years in question, so where any overpayment could have come from is a total mystery to me. They also seem to have given me the wrong tax code, so I expect I'll have to pay it all back again.

I hope the roof repairs don't come out too pricey. Ours has developed a small leak, but it's only evident in very heavy rain, and Geoff reckons he can fix it fairly easily.

I've been putting the CH on now and then for a few hours when it's been chilly, but it's off again now. It looks as if it'll get some use during the next few days, though, with the forecast cold snap. There's a chilly NNW wind and sharp showers already.