h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Achieved two things today...

1) Ascended Pen y Fan, the highest mountain in South Wales. 2,906 ft - not the highest of mountains but still a good hard workout...

2) Got the missus to do it too.

Number 2 was the trickier and she wasn't half complaining at times. But then I did Ben Nevis some years ago 1 week after coming out of a full leg plaster that had been on for 2 months. So I know how she felt - a long hard slog and pain, pain and more pain. So I stayed with her.

Both of us were well pleased at the summit. Now for a long hot bath...

Congratulations Orcus

Unfortunately we haven't been able to take a bath for 2 weeks due to an ongoing saga with our jacuzzi bath. This time the pump has 'gone' causing water to seap into our dining room . The company have sent us the wrong part twice and so, in the end, I had to email 'em a photograph so they know what it looks like .

Fortunately we have two other showers in the house for use by our lodgers, and we've had to use those.

Well the moment you use the word 'jacuzi' then you lose all sympathy I'm afraid

Oh and thanks for the congrats.

It wasn't too hard for me to be honest. I go to the gym a lot - nearly every day in the week)- and this seemed to stand me in rather good stead.

As I said though, it's not the biggest of mountains really, just in south Wales. Ben Nevis, which I ascended in 1998 was about 10 times tougher - that really is a *hard* slog to get up.

Well, it's my wife's fault we have a jacuzzi. There is an Entry in My Journal about it starting on 15th August, 2006 That's why I described it as a 'long-running saga'.

The gist of it is that:

The saga of our bath/shower.whirlpool
Aug 15, 2006

This started some years ago after we'd fitted a power shower and we started getting water flooding into our kitchen below. This ruined the artex ceiling in our kitchen. (We have quite elaborate patterned artexed ceilings which is done by a speciialist firm from a town about 25 miles away).
The ceiling was repaired under our household insurance and we had the seal between the bath and the wallo re done. This lasted for about 2 years, when we hasd a repeat of the problem, and the kitchen ceiling once again had to be replaced under the household insurance. This time we had the edge of the bath recessed into the wall and re-sealed. This lasted another two years when we had another repeat of the problem, and once again had to have thew kitchen ceiling replaced under the household insurance. This time the insurance company told us that we were 'bvlacklisted' and they wouldn't pay for any replacement ceilings.
WEe had a specialist come round to try and trace where the water was leaking from and he discovered that the bathroom wall tiles (which had been put up by a previous owner of the house) had been fixed with non-waterproof grout. Hence the force of water from the power shower was able to penetrate through the grouting and flow down to the kitchen. So, this time we had the tiles taken down and replaced using water proof grout. Well, after a couple of years we again encountered the same problem. We entered discussion with several specialists and eventually decided that we would have the bathroom tiles replaced with 'wet wall panels'.

However, before we could get this done we were visiting a bathroom showroom and noticed on display a bath/shower unit with a 'wrap-around' door. It also had water jets which directed jets of water at various heights up your body . It was made by a company called 'Glass'. Well, this, we thought, was ideal. There was no way that water from the shower unit could escape into the bathroom itself.

Now, seeing as we were now thinking of replacing the entire bath/shower unit, Mrs BA decided that she wouldn't mind a jacuzzi bath while we about it. The showroom staff said that they could send away the 'display' bath to have a jacuzzi/whirlpool effect fitted. I think this cost an extra £800 . Anyway, we bought this and had it fitted, and it's been for about 2 years...


Then the saga continues , but I won't bore you with it further.

... but it does me good to let off about it from time to time

Ah, OK, sorry, suppose that does call for some sympathy. I was only joking anyway.

What a pain in the backside!

The first time I got to the top of Snowdon we took out a bottle of water to have a drink. It was mainly solid.

TRiG.