Hello everybody

Just a short message to wish you all a very merry Christmas and stay safe if you are travelling for the festive season. Also a big thank you to Janet who has done a lot of work on Studyzone both in promoting debate and discussion on all things elearning and also alot of work behind the scenes in upgrading and managing the site.

Lets all have a great holiday and look forward to continuing our online journey in 2010

Merry Christmas
Daryl

Hi Daryl,

thanks for the Christmas felicitations... I hope that everyone had a 'good one', whatever that looks like for you.

Our Christmas was restful, our New Year has not been, which is why I've been so quiet!

New Year's Day we were flooded out, with 55mm of rain falling in 20 minutes. We are now learning about the intricacies of insurance and how to clean up after a flood.

Initially, it looked like our carpet may have been recoverable, so industrial fans and dehumidifiers were installed to assist with the process of drying. By Monday (4th) it was evident that the damage was far too extensive and the decision was made to remove all the carpet, that happened on Thursday (7th).

Since then, we've had seven industrial evaporative fan driven drying machines and two dehumidifiers going day and night to dry out the slab. When it is dry a team will come over to mop up all the mud. Everywhere, except where we've already mopped, is covered in red mud. It smells bad, but thank goodness our sewage treatment plant is below the level of the house, so the water was not contaminated as such.

The cork and vinyl tiles will also need to be removed, plus any of the furniture made of chipboard that was sitting in water, has been damaged, and then there is my 'piling system'. Hmmm, the less said about that the better

So, please pardon me if I'm quiet for a little longer, there is still much to do.. best..janet