I Has an Internet

After a lot of naff raffing, DH ran System Mechanic and it found a lot of issues.  I don't go on many odd sites.  My search history is frankly suspicious but when I look for what laudanum tastes like (bitter, apparently) and what sort of fuses are available for explosives (you'd be surprised what Amazon sells) or even whether embalming fluid is flammable (mildly, but that search led me to the discovery that Amazon and eBay sell powder to hide the smell of a dead body, and it's possibly available at other places as well) I go on reputable odd sites.  However I do have a weakness for hidden object games and they have been pinging back to their site and what with running two browsers and not clearing cookies because of Topcashback etc, there were over 4000 fixes.  Oops. 

So I now have a functional laptop and I will be regularly running the System Mechanic as I don't think I could manage without online shopping.  Also there have been issues.  Yesterday the nice people from AO came with a new fridge and new cooker.  The old cooker was gas and the new cooker is electric so they disconnected the gas properly, cut off a length of pipe to keep it out of the way and capped it off.  The gas meter has been professionally assessed three times this year and we've only just reached February.  Then they found that the new cooker was defective.  I think they had the main clue when sparks shot across the kitchen and all the lights went out.  Lighting has been restored.  I get a new cooker next week.  That is not as much of a problem as we have a halogen cooker (which rocks) and a combination microwave cooker and if you extend the search to fifteen minutes walk you have at least two pizza places, two Chinese takeaways, several fish and chip shops and an Indian. 

One of the door shelves on the fridge is broken.  They are supposed to be getting back to me.  I'm just revelling in a fridge that keeps things cold.  It's doing well considering the floor is completely not level, but as half the tiles fell off the wall, I used some of the fallen ones to prop up the fridge and it's doing okay. 

To recap, I have a fridge with a missing door shelf, an absent cooker and a pile of tiles.  On the bright side I have an extremely well checked gas meter but it isn't really making up for the rest.  As someone who knows less than the average yogurt about building work, I think the wall where the tiles have fallen is damp.  There are many sources of damp in this kitchen, including it being at least 50% underground, regular flooding from the drain (now more or less sorted) and roofs leaking and the damp getting down (also now sorted).  I think, however, that this wall is getting damp because it adjoins the cupboard under the front step which used to be the outside toilet.  I don't think the wall has been properly damp proofed and there's something that looks suspiciously like a hole for a pipe going through that has been inadequately plugged.  All the plaster is crumbling and I have no idea what to do next. 

The plan was to have a clear out, save up and get rewired asap.  Do I look at the damp before or after - haven't got a clue.  Either way I have to have a massive clear out and I don't really know where to start.  At the moment I've got as far as sitting and sobbing. 

So I'm pulling myself together, looking for the bright side and I'm sure a lot of good will come out of it, especially having a good clear out.  Challenge accepted.

Also I have 608 unread messages in just one of my email accounts and I don't want to think about the others.  This means I have things I can do when I take a break.  I will not be bored.