Getting old, cold water and being stuck
Published: Fri, 03/18/16
Yesterday I restored the flow of hot water to a walk in bath. One of my clients is an elderly lady who had a walk in bath installed ten years ago. The bath is tall rather than long and there is a door with a rubber seal and a fold down chair inside. The idea being that you can walk in and out of the bath rather than climbing in over the side. Not a problem for most of your life but such a manoeuvre can become quite dangerous and difficult when you reach an advanced age.
The problem with such a bath is that you have to get in before you fill it up with hot water. Well, you could close the door first and then climb in but that would rather defeat the object of the exercise. So, for safety reasons there is a thermostatic valve which is meant to ensure that the water does not come out of the tap above 39 degrees Celsius, round about blood temperature, thus removing the risk of scalding. My client in this case is still mentally as sharp as a razor, but a lot of elderly people are slipping a bit in the mind department and may not notice the water was too hot until it was too late.
So far so good, except that in this case the hot water tap had been only producing very cool water for the past few weeks and my client asked me if I could sort it out. I promised to look into it and managed to get access to the valve by removing the side panels. I then did some research and downloaded a PDF manual from the manufacturer’s website (we are spoiled these days with our access to information). I ran through the test procedures described in the pamphlet. I also discovered that a replacement unit would be nearly £600.
I wound the temperature adjustment screw all the way in and all the way out and hot water came out again. All it needed was freeing up. In fact the manual recommended just such a procedure every six months anyway. However, the valve had been installed without easy access for maintenance, something I will recommend be rectified.
So, two lessons from this. First, don’t let someone replace an expensive component until it has been properly tested.
Secondly, perhaps more usefully, when you think you are stuck don’t just give up and assume nothing can change.
What you actually need is action to free you off and set you working again. It is so easy to get stuck and it happens in all aspects of life. Physical training regimes. How many people start a class or join a gym in January (the new year being a kind of reset button for many people) but are stuck again in taking no exercise by February? It will apply to relationships, work, home improvements, personal development and spiritual engagement. All these projects get stuck at some point and we give up.
Doing the stances daily means that I don’t get stuck with my Stav training and practice. Being committed to teaching at least four times a week now helps too. But I do get stuck on writing and this morning is a particular effort to get unstuck again. As far as producing regular postings I have been feeling like that thermostat, unable to release hot water. For some reason I have felt equally unable to release my writing. Something seems to have freed me up this morning. So, there you are it does happen.
This Saturday morning is an opportunity to get unstuck with Stav training by joining us in Salisbury. We always have good sessions at St George’s Church hall and I am looking forward to training with my regulars. You are very welcome to join us too. I will be looking in detail at how the Hagl rune provides us with everything we really need to know about Stav training, what lines to use, understanding the five principles and creating and destroying structure. I will write more about this stuff but you can only really learn by doing. More information at http://iceandfire.org.uk/train.html
regards
Graham
PS Venetia has started a class specifically for women on Wednesdays at 6pm. More details at http://somersetstav.co.uk/women.html