the corner office

Two certainties in life. Got home from the lunch run, and there's a strange hissing sound coming from under the kitchen sink. Open up the cupboard under the sink, and I'm met with a steam bath. Quick call to the plumbers (one of whom used to live next door, which is always a bonus), and a corroded, leaking hot water pipe which runs the length of the kitchen, behind the cupboards, is the culprit. Thankfully they managed to remove some of the cupboard backing and get to the pipe to clamp it, but the real repair at some point in the future is going to mean ripping apart the entire kitchen, removing stoves, fitted cupboards, the lot, to replace the pipe. Seems we're not the first flat in the complex to have this problem.

At times like this I'm bloody glad I'm renting. We'll have the inconvenience of not having a kitchen for a day or few, but at least the expense (and heartache of seeing one's recently-refurbished kitchen being taken apart) won't be ours. Having gotten off the phone with her a few minutes ago, I think our poor landlady's sitting down and having a stiff whiskey round about now.

And with that, my afternoon has evaporated. Back to Recons code I go...