Well, after a really bad morning weather wise, the situationimproved somewhat. We went back downtown at about 13:30 and could see the top of the Empire State Building, so we decided to go up. 

We had reasonable views of the buildings that were relatively close, but it was very hazy, so the visibility wasn’t great.  We did manage to get some good photos of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings from the road though, so that was good.

Later on, we headed to the Apple shop, which at road level is simply a glass cube with a spiral staircase, then a huge shop under street level.  I looked at getting an ipod nano, but the difference in price between here and Amazon was only about 10 GBP, so it wasn’t worth the hassle.  Alice had a play with the iphone, which I have to confess looks fantastic.

After dinner, we found out that there was a large explosion on Lexington not far from the Chrysler Building.  Apparently a steam vent exploded, they don’t think that it was terrorist activity, which is good.  It was a massive explosion though, and killed on person.

Thankfully we weren’t in the area, but it happened not long after we left.

Well, I’m absolutely knackered, so I’m gonna call it a night now.

Well, its been a really wet start to our first full day in NYC.  Woke up this morning to the sound of heavy rainfall and thunder which isn’t good.

Went out anyway, and got rather wet :o(, we got some good shots of some of the buildings, but both the Chrysler building and the Empire State were shrouded in cloud, and the Flatiron building has got bright orange scaffolding on it, which was a bit of a disappointment.

We’re back at the hotel at the moment, waiting for Alice’s camera battery to charge up a bit, then we’re either back off downtown, or off to Central Park, depending on the weather.

Well, its been a very long day today.  We were up at 04:00 in order to catch the 05:00 rail air bus to Heathrow.

There were massive queues at Heathrow, but we arrived just as they started moving people into the executive area to check in baggage, so we didn’t have to wait long.

Flight to Madrid was on time, and short, and the connecting flight was on time as well.

Madrid Airport terminal is a fantastic building, architecturally, and I really enjoyed wandering around it.

Flight to JFK was long (7 hrs) and seemed to take forever, the back has been playing up a bit, but feels a bit better now.\Got to hotel at about 18:00 NYC time, have eaten, and am now going to turn in as am absolutely exhausted.

Well, we’ve got the Plus.Net connection active, and after updating the router firmware the speed tests that I’ve run show that we’re getting a 4meg connection.

Not quite the 8meg I was hoping for, but still 4 times better than what we had.

I’ve just had an email from Plus.Net to say that my broadband account is now active.

Fingers crossed that their service is faster and more reliable than Pipex.

Alice tells me that the engineer came out early this morning, and had a look at the boiler.  He’s apparently tightened everything up, and has stopped the joint from leaking.

He doesn’t understand where all of the water came from, so its possible that a lot of this was spilt when the system was installed,  but the pipe was definitely leaking last night, and the towel and cardboard were certainly damp this morning.

Lets hope that its all now sorted and that the leak is fixed.

Well, its Monday, and I’ve been at home all day with the gas installers finishing off the boiler install.

Slightly concerned by the fact that when they extracted the flue from the old boiler out the top of the chimney, they managed to dislodge several bricks, which they told me that they couldn’t replace because they didn’t have a solid platform to work from, and needed both hands to lay the bricks, so not amused by that.

Now annoyed because they didn’t take any of the tanks out of the roof like they were supposed to, so the list gets ever longer.

Now, I’ve just been to the kitchen, and there is the stady drip of water through our light fitting.  Called the boiler care number that was on the front of the boiler only to find that we hadn’t been given a policy number for the boiler care.

I’ve now disconnected the fuse for the downstairs lights, and when I disconnected the kitchen light, I got a face full of water, as 1″ had collected in the light fitting.

The leak appears to be where the scale reducer has been fitted, and so is on the cold water in pipe, so turning the boiler off didn’t seem to help much.

In the end, we managed to wedge some cardboard under the joint, and wrap a towel around it, and this seems to have stemmed the flow somewhat, as the drips are now only once every2-3 seconds as opposed to the 2 drips per second  that I was getting earlier.

Alice is going to have to take tomorrow off work to wait for the engineer, which is less than ideal.  Oh well, the bargaining list for a price reduction grows ever longer.

The First Great Western station in Reading succeeded in really winding me up again tonight.  I arrived at the station in plenty of time for the train, and as I was expecting the train to be late (it was a Virgin Train), I was pleasantly surprised to find it being reported as on time.

It was reported as being on time right up till the scheduled departure time, then is was suddenly 20 minutes late.

How the hell, can you not know its running 20 minutes late until the departure time.  The First Great Western station in Reading is particularly bad at this, and also at giving information regarding why a train is delayed or cancelled.

I can arrive at Reading in the morning to be greeted by a message saying “The 07:24 South West Trains service to London Waterloo has been Delayed/Cancelled”, and thats it!!  however once you get to Wokingham, you get an explanation of why the train was delayed/cancelled.

Come on Reading Station, get your act together, we’ve all paid enough money for our tickets, we at lease deserve to be told that a train is 20 minutes late before it gets to the scheduled departure time.  we also deserve to be told why a train has been delayed/cancelled, especially when that information is provided at the next stop!!!!!!!

Well, its Saturday morning, and the gas installers have just turned up (09:00), so the day has started well so far.

So far they’ve drilled a big hole in the wall for the boiler flue, drained the central heating system, hot water cylinder and header tank, and are now draining the radiatiors and fitting the new thermostatic valves.

Alice has her driving theory test this morning, so I hope that it goes well, and she passes.

The engineers are hoping to get the boiler installed and working by the end of today, and will leave it plugged into a wall socket so that we can at least have hot water :oD

Lets see how it goes.

Alice had arranged to work from home today, which is when the engineers were supposed to finish.

Apparently the electricians turned up at about 10:00 expecting to see the engineers, but they weren’t there :o( so the electricians did what they could (which I think consisted of earthing the gas meter and mains water supply) before they left at about 11:30.

Alice chased up British Gas and was told that the area manager phone back in about half an hour (which apparently never happened).

Eventually Alice got though to to lady I had spoken to to arrange the installation date (who was very helpful), she explained that there had been a big problem on the previous job, but that the guys would be there this afternoon.

They eventually turned up at about 16:00 I believe, took one look at what needed to be done, and decided that they didn’t have time to get it started today, and would work Saturday and Sunday if necessary to get it installed.

Needless to say, Alice was NOT amused, and neither am I. :o(