So do I Misterioso. Let's hope you do not have to do a run to A and E before the job is finished and you can enjoy your shower without having to take too many headache pills.

Thinking about that... One bottle of paracetamol I saw suggested that one 'push off and keep away from children' I think when one has a headache that is excellent advice! (Actually they are being good at present!, they know what mum and dad might get on the chocolate front from Santa if they are not quiet...this little elf has been to waitrose!)

We were more or less advised not to have electric showers because both the main bathroom and en suite are completely at the opposite corner of the house for the fuse box. But as it happens our water pressure is still pretty good anyway.

That would mean large circuit runs.

Our bathrooms are close, but I'm not sure how loaded that circuit is. The water pressure is lousy.

How is the back now f#m?

Well, I now have no heating at all and the water has stopped heating up too .

And someone has knocked down part of my wall by my driveway...and my guttering has fallen down...AND I HAVE NO MONEY...

*wails*

Still a twinge in my back but not as bad as yesterday thanks !

Oh Cyrilla! *shakes head* so sorry

Oh No!

I've spent the past half hour venting my spleen. Just when I think I've got the show on the road, I find that my OH has put another obstacle in my path to the organisation of the family Christmas.

However, compared with no heat, broken guttering and a partially demolished wall this really is trivial. (Even if at present it feels unremitting!)

On the bright side, the kids are on side.

Oh dear ! Hugs to Cyrilla and Jod !

It might sound trivial to the rest of you, but he appears to have destroyed all versions (including the ones he was meant to have backed up of my Christmas card address list! It is definitely time for the bag of humbugs... now what am I going to do about appearing as the Ghost of Christmas Past...)

You'll have to send out Easter cards early

Last posting date for Christmas has long gone, so unless this afternoon was given over to hand-delivery, they wouldn't have arrived in time anyway. Think of it as an opportunity for a cull of your Christmas card list - you can finally delete the people with whom you are only in Christmas Card contact and don't like anyway.

Do you have hard copies of the addresses?

Failing that, can the document be recovered somehow by a computer whizz? When I was in salaried employment my IT department were reasonably good at recovering deleted files - up to a point...

Thanks for the reminder!
*goes to back-up Christmas card list*

W

It only passed yesterday! It is only 21st December and they are playing it safe!

oh Cyrilla, I really feel for you

Me too

Present day electric showers use up to about 11 KW of electricity, which equates to 46 amps at 240 volts. So you would require a long run of 10 mm2 cable to each shower. And unless you paid the Electricity Board for an upgraded supply you could only run one shower at a time, (the main service fuse usually being rated at just 60 Amps).

SB

Sorry to whinge, guys - just feels like things are conspiring against me at the moment and I'm sinking a bit .

Now my PC is doing funny things - I've lost the toolbars, including the address bar, on the internet and the only way I can escape from the website I'm viewing is to shut the whole computer down.

And the volume icon has vanished and I can't change the volume - I've tried various things to no avail.

Any techno-savvy forumites have any suggestions?

Feeling very wobbly.

OH wonders if you can find the 'view' option.

Or hit 'control H' for previous history.

Try pressing F11, Cyrilla

Aaaarrrrgghhhhhhh


Thank you.

No milk at work and I hate black coffee

aaaaaaaaagghhhhh!

Oh

Wonder what I ate (or drunk) last night that upset me ? Iv'e been rather active in the bowel dept this morning !!

Oh no! That's the last thing you need as it can be very draining (both literally and figuratively)

At least my back is almost right now.

Thanks for sharing.

This journey isn't going exactly brilliantly...

Yes, TMI F#m!
(hope you feel better soon)

Well I'll add in the obligatory geek response of "Sharing violation!"

Where are you off to?

Oh dear

I find googling "My toolbars have gone missing" usually brings up lots of helpful suggestions! It is usually a case of having accidentally hit a button and someone else has always done it before me and asked for help.

I got a little too 'up close and personal' with the neighbour's car last night. I can't see a mark on his car (thankfully) but mine has a nasty scuff at the front. The worst thing is that there was no need for it at all - I can't imagine how I managed to do it...

W

I did that to a friends car and had to get it touched up. (not a mark on mine!) The only reason it happened at all was I was trying not to mow the scouts down at the time. I'm normally very careful

She was very lovely about it.

These things happen to everyone once in awhile Willobie, especially when you are tired.

Our neighbour crashed into our car 3 Christmases in a row. The year she did it while we were still in it and the door she came at was the only one that opened was the scariest

How's her driving the rest of the year?



Cyrilla Has there been any improvement with the computer? (or anything else?)

Fine, I think. Her husband said she used to do it to the car of the previous people in our house too. Only at Christmas!!
Luckily we don't live there anymore

Trying to sort out the house, properly tidied our room and steam cleaned the floor for the first time since we moved in, now trying to dispose of the "stuff" which really is NOT required and get the house properly tidy before guests come for new year. 2 lots of guests means our room can't be the dumping ground for all the general untidiness in the house as we'll be using it for 1 couple, so proper tidy required. It takes so LONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have guests arriving tomorrow for Christmas, one of whom cannot climb stairs so I need to turn my dining room into a bedroom. The house is still a tip because I have been ill all week and so am very behind. I'm not going to be ready, but I am past caring. The children have been wonderful, helping with the ironing and tidying their rooms, but there is still so much to do.

Just came home to a letter from the bank, warning me I was overdrawn. I wouldn't mind, but the only reason I'm overdrawn is that my company owes me nearly ?500 in expenses claims, and my manager went on holiday for 3 weeks without setting up someone to approve them in her absence.

When I get back I am demanding a company credit card, come what may. It just isn't acceptable that this is the third time I have had financial difficulties because of company expenses.

Some of us, and I include myself in that, are still feeling rather bruised by some of the things directed towards us earlier in the week, especially as there's been no satisfactory resolution Amazing how quickly some people are prepared to forget. I suppose that for now we should and hope that some people might be willing to relfect on the way they treat others next year.

I missed the thread that caused all the problems, I hope everyone can get a suitable outcome very soon...

My arrrgh....OH went back to the hospital today, and now has a new cast on his ankle, for another 3 weeks He's really upset, but had to admit that it really hurt when the doc pressed on the break. Daughter is ill and on antibiotics now too, and then add to that 2 broken vehicles so no transport for the Christmas period unless we manage to fix one tomorrow...I think it could be a really quiet one...

I reccomend you re-image the PC, but get a copy of important documents first as you lose everything when re-imaging but it resets all the defaults which will most likely solve the problem.

Note to close applications you can use ALT + F4 rather than file close or clicking the x in the corner. Furthuremore you can adjust sound in control panel > sound.

Or could you use System Restore to go back to an earlier date before it started playing up?

Thanks guys for all your help and suggestions. Thanks to katyjay F11 brought the toolbars back although now I have no Internet or email except on my iPhone :-(.

Heating Man is coming at 8am tomorrow...

Oh, poor andante! It's lovely that your children have been supportive, but it's an awful feeling when visitors are arriving and you know you won't be ready. I'm sure people will understand that you haven't been well, and I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.


That's really annoying! Hopefully your December salary will be going in soon, but it's the principle of being expected to pay company bills up front which is totally unacceptable. I know everyone spends the odd ?10 or ?20 for work, but ?500???


Sorry to hear that two of you are hors de combat, but I hope you have a lovely family Christmas even if it is quiet. Games are good if you can't get out, and there's always the DVD player!


I do hope he can get your heating on in time for Christmas. At least it's nowhere near as cold as it was this time last year.

Fortunately I was only overdrawn for less than a day... I got paid yesterday. I knew I was down the bottom and was being careful, but had overlooked that the direct debit for my car repayment hadn't yet gone out. I think I might have escaped being charged.

Apparently the company "attitude" is that I should get a personal credit card for expenses use, and bill any costs incurred via that to the company. I think that's pretty rubbish too, to be honest. Why should I increase my personal debt (i.e. take out a second credit card) to keep costs off their books for a couple of weeks?! Not to mention the fact that my age and finances are such that I don't normally get issued with a credit limit greater than ?500. For personal use, this is fine. Clearly, for company travel (judging by the amount owed at present) it wouldn't be.

It's completely standard practice. I could (although choose not to) have a company charge card BUT I would still be liable for it, the debt would be in my name and I would need to pay the bill every month from my current account. The only advantage is that expenses wouldn't eat into my own credit limit. I use a personal credit card instead. At times I rack up quite a lot on expenses - ?500+ a week. They go onto the credit card, I generally have over a month to pay them and my expense claims are usually paid and processed within a week, meaning I can easily have an extra ?1,000 - ?2,000 working capital in my current account.

It is very unusual for a company to give a card to a junior member of staff where the company is liable and pays the charges directly, rather than reimbursing the employee. There would be potential tax / VAT / logistical issues.

Bearing in mind I work for an enormous blue-chip - we can have a company Amex if we want to. But, as TSax says, it's in our own name and we are liable and it's my personal credit rating that'll take the hit if I don't get it paid on time.
But, in our case, the Amex bill comes in, I fill in a form, send it all of with my receipts, and the company directly settles the bill. They will only do this if I've filled in the expenses form though. If I don't fill in the form, there will be a 15% penalty on the next bill - as and when I do get round to filling in the expenses form, the company will pay the expenses, but I would have to pay the penalty...and again, it's my credit rating that will have taken the non-payment mark.

If I worked anywhere smaller, I would expect to have to pay myself and claim back, but I can appreciate that this isn't always easy - comapnies assume that you personally can even get credit! Not to mention that pleny of people wouldn't want credit...and even if the company are happy to settle any fees, etc, if they pay late then it's your credit record that takes the hit...basically, great if it all works well, but if the admin side of it messes up, it can be a pain.

Well many moons ago I worked for a small (5 man) outfit and did a lot of travelling. I had a company car and a company credit card. It was easy.

I got the shock of my life when I moved to a massive "blue chip" corporation and found life wasn't like that. Within two weeks of starting I had a run in with my boss about a central London hotel bill I was expected to settle personally (this didn't come to light until I was checking in). I don't have a credit card, I haven't used one for years. I "offered" to jump straight back on the next train. The upshot was that the bill was settled directly.