Garmin, and boilers

The last week has been totally bloody awful.  Last Monday we had a contractor from British Gas come out to fit a new boiler to our house.  The job was supposed to take two days, and be relatively hassle free.  Other than having to lift the floor in the downstairs WC, it was supposed to be easy.... it obviously wasn't!  On getting home on Tuesday expecting everything to be finished, the contractor informed me that the new Baxi boiler had a fault with it and wouldnt start up.  The earliest someone from the manufacturer could make it out to fix the fault was Thursday.  So thats four days with no central heating!  Snow on the ground outside, 8C in the house.  The guy that came out on Thursday got the boiler working, but on Friday Laura got home from work to discover a pipe was leaking in the dinning area and water was dripping from the light fitting.  Someone from the gas company came out at about 22.30 on Friday, but advised he was unable to sort the problem and it would need resolved by the installation team on Monday.  So we've had water dripping from the ceiling into a pan all weekend! >:-(

One of the effects of this is that is been work has been suffering a bit.  Lots of having to pop home to try and sort out workmen etc.  Training has been pretty difficult too, since my usual routine has been totally screwed, and the weather has been bloody awful (pissing rain, sleet, snow).  I've now also got a long list of DIY work to complete myself as well as this dam leak.  Not exactly hassle free.

The training I've been managing to get done, I've been trying to fit in some more intervals and get some use out of my Garmin (crap pic above).  Its a pretty cool bit of kit.  I've loaded on some maps you can get free off the net, but haven't really required then yet since I've just been riding the local roads.  Hopefully they'll be useful on the tour in May.  I've got the Heart Rate strap which is a good edition, but not got the cadence bit working on any bikes yet.  It's pretty easy to use it for laps for doing intervals - theres a big lap button on the front, and the unit records all the data so you can transfer it onto a computer later.  I've uploaded a few sessions onto the Garmin connect site, which is actually really good.  It displays all the metrics and maps of the course.  The player function is quite cool - allowing you to run through the session displaying the data as it was recorded.  I'm quite looking forward to trying it on a longer run. Heres a link to Saturdays short (2C + sleet) training ride including an interval session up the Back o Hill: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/72920453