Like that bit in Superman when the Hoover Dam bursts...

Back in early March, I somewhat stupidly wrote a post about how well our bathroom renovation seems to be going. What in the name of all that is good and holy was I thinking of?! I've cursed my house! Well, you might have gathered that things aren't in fact running smoothly at all. For starters, it's taken almost a month to reach a point that's somewhere near a finished product (and almost a month of strategically planning when is a safe time to nip for a wee amongst the building rubble that has taken over the place), and just when we thought everything was pretty much finished last night and therefore safe to turn the water back on...it turns out it wasn't. Oh no.

Water erupted from every possible mechanical orifice that it could. Like geysers, only colder. And indoors. The bathroom is flooded, and in turn - so is the kitchen as that's the room directly below the bathroom and the laws of gravity had to carry the water somewhere. Then, we tried turned the water off completely at the stopcock in the kitchen - alas, to no avail. It just kept turning! And water kept gushing! There's now a tidal wave downstairs being haphazardly collected by a bucket wedged under the leaking tap, while people who I hope know what they are doing are busy freezing pipes to replace the broken stopcock. And have dug up several floorboards in the process. Argh!

This has resulted in me having to work from home today in order to empty out the overflowing bucket of water from the busted pipe every twenty minutes - and an email of much ambiguity went around my colleagues proclaiming that I wasn't in the office today "due to plumbing problems". I foresee having to explain several times over tomorrow that this was not a euphemism. Sigh. I hope this is fixable sharpish. All I wanted was a working bathroom - that's not too much to ask for, is it?

The bathroom blitz...

Groan. We’re doing our bathroom up. I say we – what I mean is, my Dad is the builder extraordinaire; my Uncle the electrician is (surprisingly enough) fitting the spotlights; The Other Half is the labourer and I am the on-call tea and biscuits girl. There have been the usual mishaps of things not fitting how they’re supposed to, missing parts, wonky fittings and damaged panels…but nothing compared to the chaos that would have ensued had The Other Half and I been left to our own devices.

In our previous abode (the little flat), we attempted to spruce the bathroom up ourselves with some new flooring. Only we had no money whatsoever so ended up with some delightful ‘tile effect’ lino. Lovely. For reasons unknown, we used the old carpet that was down (who has carpet in a bathroom, for goodness’ sake? It’s very, very wrong! It was glued up the bath panel and everything!) as a template to cut from, and forgot that the design would therefore be inverted. We ended up with a fetching gaping hole in the wrong place that had to be covered with a bath mat at all times to hide our mutual incapability with DIY.

Things could be worse. At least after this, we'll actually have a ceiling instead of gaping plasterboard holes, and fully functional lights instead of a lone dangling bulb with exposed cables. Still, having to strategically time going for a wee is not my thing, really. But it'll be worth it. I hope.

Adventures of the kamikaze kitteh...

Cats are very peculiar creatures. Not only do they power the internet (check out I Can Has Cheezburger if you don't believe me), but they are sneaky thieves. See below for my photographic evidence. Now, my cat looks quite proficient at this standing-on-my-bedside-cabinet-stealing-my-water-malarkey here, so I'm guessing she's been doing it for quite a while. On the sly. Which also means that I've been unknowingly sipping out of cat-tainted drinks in the middle of the night. Mmmm, delicious. I don't think.

The Cat Burglar caught in the act.
Note: the book on my bedside cabinet at the minute is utter rubbish. Just don't bother.

Anyway, yesterday I came home from work and our little mog wasn't mewing at the front door to greet me (and demand food) as usual. Instead, she was yelping on the landing and dragging herself about with limp hind legs. So, a trip to the vet was in order. Turned out she'd dislocated her hips and strained her ligaments. How, we can only guess - as nothing looked out of place in the house, like there'd been an almighty calamity. But I reckon she's tried to leap onto the cabinet (pictured) from the bed for a sneaky sup of my water, misjudged it completely and fallen down the gap.

She's on the mend. On a lot of drugs. And, I've had words with her. I think she understood that at 14, she should no longer be leaping about furniture in a kamikaze manner. Then she passed out on painkillers.

How to be a rubbish domestic goddess...

Rant alert.

On Saturday, I am supposed to be having the girls over for dinner. This has now turned into some of the girls plus some other halves for a Chinese New Year supper. OK, I can cope with that. Ordinarily. Except this hasn't been an ordinary week. No. It's been a week of complete and utter culinary disasters. My domestic goddess halo has fallen. In fact, I've Frisbee-d it out of the bloody window.

Earlier in the week I made a big pot of ramen. It always goes down well in my house, does ramen. I just don't think I engaged my brain when making it, this time. Instead of shredding pak choi, in went red cabbage instead. I don't believe I've ever had luminous purple soup before. Radioactive soup. I bet Nigella never has such mishaps. A day later I tried my hand at melty-in-the-middle mini chocolate puds. They were lurrrverly. Rich, but delish. The recipe made four little puds, so I saved two for dessert the next evening. Only muggins here forgot that they were melty-in-the middle puddings, and whacked them in the microwave at full pelt to heat them through. They were no longer melty-in-the-middle puds when I fished them out. More like steaming rubber bouncy balls. Sigh.

Anyway, undeterred, that same evening I set about making a stew to use up all the leftover veg in the fridge. Now, I didn't do anything differently to what I usually do here, so I'd like to know why it all went hideously wrong. Casserole pot on hob, oil in pot, brown off meat and onions, throw in the veg, add stock and simmer for a bit, then bung in the oven. All was fine until I added the stock. Then I heard a sort of popping, crackly noise. Then a gush. The casserole pot had cracked clean IN HALF and a litre of hot stock proceeded to flood the hob, run into the oven and all over the floor...it was a flamin' stock tidal wave. £80 Le Creuset casserole pots should not shatter on your hob. No. They. Should. Not. I have a good mind to take the two halves back to the shop. Which I could have done if only I hadn't shattered them into several more pieces on the patio in a rage.

Last night I decided to practice some homemade spring rolls ahead of Saturday. I've had my three cooking calamities this week, I couldn't possibly be due any more, I said to myself. Ho ho, how wrong I was. I had the recipe in order (a usually trustworthy source - Saturday Kitchen), a very nice gal at work gave me some tips, all the ingredients were lined up and I was ready to go. The filling went well. The pastry - not so well. More bundles than rolls. Now, even though they weren't wrapped very well they still should have been ok. So I'd really like to know how in the name of all that is holy do spring rolls EXPLODE in the oven? What did I ever do to them?

I think I'll have the takeaway menu on standby on Saturday.