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Monday, April 30, 2012

Ungrateful little sods


An Oxford Duck

Well the buds are budding, the blossoms are blossoming and the air conditioning is kaputting. This is normal for this time of the year. Our air conditioning does not like to change from hot to cold and requires quite some coaxing.

Well it’s as hot as Billy-oh here now and change time has come.

In theory you can switch from heating to cooling cycles using the buttons and dials on the air conditioning units. However these do not work - and I suspect they are not actually connected to anything and are provided simply for the amusement of the manufacturers.

What actually happens is that two men with screwdrivers have to come and fiddle about in the innards of each unit until they starting running cold – or hot – as required.

This is a delicate task and we have asked them to come as soon as possible as only when they perform their magic rituals can we make our apartment liveable. 

The arrival of really warm weather has prompted my new plants to die. Well they are not actually dead yet but they are going crispy at the edges and this is never a good sign.

I don’t know what I did wrong – I never do – but the result is always the same. 

I remind you that I planted these new ones on 27 March – as detailed in this blog – so they have barely made it through a month. I gave them a good home with a view of Stephansdom and they died after a month.

Ungrateful little sods.

8 comments:

  1. Sorry I could not be there to fix things for you. It is a common thing for air conditioners to not work at the beginning of a cooling season because they may have a smaLL leak that lets out enough refrigerant so that the system may partiaLLy cool but then it wiLL freeze up the coil because the pressure is too low. One telltale sign of this happening is if you can actuaLLy feel the volume of air decrease coming out the vents versus when you first turn the system on (you can try to thaw the coil by running it in fan-only mode for several hours, and see if the volume of air increases.) Plus refrigerant is becoming drasticaLLy more eXpensive, it has doubled in price here in less than a year.

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  2. you have my green fingered skills I see.

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  3. You made my day again with your opening line...you should really consider combining all your thoughts in a book...I would be the first one to purchase it.

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  4. You made my day again with your opening line...you should really consider combining all your thoughts in a book...I would be the first one to purchase it.

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  5. you & i have a lot in common when it comes to looking after plants i think! it seems you had a good trip to london and oxford? i miss book shops too

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  6. I am thinking re-using that dirt was not a great idea, but again maybe it was just a general not comfy here and how many times did you actually go sit and chat with them?

    And thanks for the reminder, I need to call for my spring check ups for the H/C units.

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  7. Amazing. You were able to kill your tree here without even being here!

    It was removed from your front garden here in OZ at 7.00 am yesterday, including stump grinding.

    Photo will be sent by email of removal in progress and current view of front of house. By current, I don't mean right now. It's 5.45 pm and now dark here. I'll take a daytime shot when next sunny. May have to wait a while...

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  8. esb: Thanks - it is working much better after running for a few days.

    Glen: Yes my thumbs are brown!

    David: You are too kind

    angiv: There are not many people who are good with plants.

    fmcgmccllc: I think you are right. I should have used new potting mix.

    Annie: Yes - the arborist pronounced it dead so it was time for it to go. We will replace it with something kinder to the pathways.

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