Did it Again

I did it again - I went into Leeds.  This time I went in without bear.  This is not necessarily less expensive, but it does lower the chances of me spending.

First things first, I survived the boiler service.  The man turned up at @ 9.30 and he seemed very disappointed that he couldn't condemn my gas cooker.  To be honest, he wasn't the only one.  It's older than bear.  Mind you, it's not as old as the one I used in the shared house when I first met DH, back in the 1980s.  I found a picture of the same oven in a 1930s cook book except some of the little twiddly bits they had instead of dials had broken off and you had to use pliers to turn the gas for the oven on. 

I took a while to recover from the boiler service (the man had Views), but then I dashed into Leeds and picked up some fabric.  Yes, I know, I have several tons of fabric already but I wanted something like absorbent cotton without lint.  Bear has really taken to the calligraphy fountain pens and seems to be permanently elbow deep in ink.  I can't tell you what the bathroom sink looks like since he started cleaning his pens out.  He has been dabbing his pen on swathes of tissues.  I have decided that for the sake of the environment I'm going to cut this very nice, lint free cotton into rough squares or rectangles with pinking shears, stitch a few layers together with a few random stitches and he can use that as his pen wiper.  I plan to do it tomorrow because if I don't then I'll have another job stuck on the end of the list and I want it finished.  This way I can cut down on the tissues being used and I daresay the fabric will pay for itself in a month.  The cotton is already washed and dried.  I'll just put an iron over it, cut it with pinking shears (I hope I can find them!) and put a few stitches in the centre to catch a few layers together.  I can stash a few of these in a basket in a drawer in his desk and just bung them in a wash as and when needed.

Here's an interesting question.  I found a link to the government site which monitors the water levels on the local beck.  I'm quite impressed as it is just a small stream but I suppose if it floods it does cause a lot of disruption on a very busy road.  I thought I would share, but would I say that the site showed the height of the water, or would I talk about the depth of the water?  I discussed this with DH and we agreed that it would be height as the water was rising higher, but I'm still open to suggestions.  It's currently about half the height it would be if there was a risk of flood, but it's still quite full.