Find me some plumbing to crawl into.

God, I hate us. At this particular moment in time I think my level of dislike for myself and my little family is probably on a par with our landlord’s.

The plumber has just been. The same plumber who was meant to come about a month ago because I reported that we had no hot water in the shower room. But then when he phoned and said he was on his way, I checked the water again and all of a sudden we had hot water, and I thought I better not waste the landlords money by calling the guy out for nothing so I phoned up and cancelled him.

And then the next day we had no hot water again. Felt a bit of a fool then, but today took it a wee bit further. Given our recent falling out with the letting agent and the landlord, things have been a bit tense, so when they agreed to get the plumber back out to look at the hot water, I made sure I was available as soon as the guy could fit us in.

So he’s just been. I told him about the lack of hot water, and also mentioned that the water pressure was down and then yesterday the washing machine decided to start flashing error codes at me which I “gegoogled” (incidentally, that is one of my favourite German words – it’s the past tense of the verb ‘to Google (something)’. Great, isn’t it?). I found out that it meant that there wasn’t enough water getting into the machine.

So he looked, and he went “uh-hmm” and then he stepped into the shower cubicle and turned this big knob a bit.

Ta-crappy-da! All of a sudden we had oodles of roasty-toasty water flowing out of the tap, and I could hear the water-heating box clicking away (which it does as you turn the tap to get hotter) like there was never a problem. Clickety-clickety click. I felt like a total fool. I summed it up with a good “Ach Manno!”, and a bit of a “I bet that was those pesky kids”, and then I felt a little scared about what the landlord and the letting agent were going to say, and I may have let out a rather large groan.

Stevie had told me to watch out for the plumber and to make sure there were absolutely no drying clothes on the radiators causing havoc to the windows, just in case the plumber was a spy for the landlord and would report back on us. As all the wet washing was stuck in the error-flashing washing machine he didn’t have to worry. (plus I think he was being a little paranoid, and it’s put me off giving him any Stasi books to read).
Anyway, as much as I hate us and our general crappness when it comes to plumbing; I do love our plumber. He said (without me asking) that he would lie on the paperwork. He’s going to say that the pipes were ‘constipated’. I know he was saying ‘blockage’, but it’s the same word in German for constipation (=verstopfung). What a relief. And what a perfect tagline for a constipation remedy too.

The one where I deprive the neighbours of heat on the coldest day of the year

I believe we are known as 'the English' by some people in our building. In the same way our previous downstairs neighbours were called 'the Canadians'. It's not so much the name, and who cares about that anyway, cause as Scot's it's not our country that's getting derided. No, it's the tone it's said in. We might as well be 'the Gypsies' or 'the people who don't recycle correctly' - yes, it's that bad.

Our crime in earning this name, was that we complained about the appliances in the apartment to our landlord. I won't go into it. I probably already have many months ago. Anyway, our landlord went straight from our apartment to his best friend's upstairs, and presumably bad-mouthed us for his own failings. I'm not sure what the Canadians did to deserve, in actual fact, worse disdain from the neighbours. I think it might have something to do with wanting a satellite dish. Or maybe simply just having an apartment twice the size of everyone elses, when really as an old snob, you want to be the top dog in the 'Haus'. Certainly, they've never missed an opportunity to tell us that their apartment is bigger than ours because they gain about a square metre due to the position of the stairs.

Anyway, I shall get to my point on this in due course. What happened was that there was a letter posted on the inner door downstairs telling us that there was a leak in the cellar and on such and such a date we would all have to turn our heating off by 8am at the latest while it was repaired. As luck would have it, it was the day we were to experience some of the lowest temperatures this winter: -11 between 6am and 11am and then a slightly warmer -9 to -6 around lunchtime I think. I was dreading it and decided that if the apartment was freezing when I got back from German class and picking up the kids, then we would just go to the KaDeWe and take full advantage of their 3 hours of free, roasty-toasty childcare and expensive coffee.

But when we got back the flat seemed warm enough. Certainly warm enough for my two lovely children to strip off and run around naked as is their want most days. At the time we returned there was no notice up to say that we could put our heating back on, and as I didn't feel we needed it, I didn't even try.

Fast forward 8 hours. There's a banging on the door. The following conversation is very jaggily translated)

Neighbour who organised the repairs: "Are you ok? Are you ok?",

Me: "Sure, we're fine! Why, what's up?".

Neighbour: "None of the other neighbours have any heat. We can't work out the problem. Both the side houses have got heat back on, and have had heat all afternoon, but there is still a problem with our house, and many of the neighbours are worried because they are so cold. Do you have heat coming out of your radiators?"

Me: "...well, I haven't turned them back on yet."

Neighbour: "There was a notice downstairs to say that you must put your heating back on and turn all the radiators to 4".

It's not like I can say, "Ah, but I have 2 kids who won't wear clothes in the afternoon, and I'm not taking them up and down in the lift naked to check for notices".
So I said: "Oh". That seemed to cover it. There was no point in adding that Stevie can't read (and understand) German, so just doesn't even bother trying, so he wouldn't even have seen it when he got home from work.

So the neighbour demanded that we turn our radiators on to 4, and guess what, all of a sudden everyone elses heating came on too. I like to think that it was a coincidence (ha, ha, ha!), but I have the feeling that more of our neighbours will be referring to us as 'the English'. But at least we've proven what a hardy bunch we Scot's really are!!

You just don't know it yet, but you need a banner

I have come home and discovered my Facebook inbox and my email inbox full of good news. Good news of commissions. Yippee! I recently did some illustration work for my friend Sarah who has opened up a DaWanda shop called Millicent's Closet selling vintage-style jewellery.

We agreed to do a skills exchange where I would do the illustration work for the site and her business cards and so on, and she would take some nice photos of my kids (and I have another request I haven't yet told her about!).

In the time that it took to do the work, it turned out that someone nipped in and opened an Etsy shop, a Facebook Fanpage, and a blog also using the name 'Millicent's Closet'. Ugh. So Sarah is trying to think of another name but has opened her DaWanda shop up in the meantime.

Meanwhile I posted the image above on my Facebook page (in actual, fact I find Facebook a brilliant way of being able to show someone work) and very nearly put a comment on along the lines of "I know now you've seen this, you'll all want one". Well, there you go, turns out to my surprise that there are quite a few people out there with banner needs. Yippee!

Now if you find yourself suddenly with strange urges to have your own illustrated banner, of course feel free to get in touch with me by email. (gray_fiona@hotmail.com). Or if you just want to go "Ooh!" and "Ah!", fill up the comments box below and make me feel marvellously talented!