Saturday morning and the boiler man
I'm currently without hot water and heating. The boiler decided to stop working at some point on friday. There was hot water in the morning, then later on in the afternoon, nothing. Flashing lights, intermittent loud banging noises and an arrow indicating lack of pressure were about as much as I could figure out. I swore a bit then called British Gas. My landlord pays for one of those agreement things so they said an engineer would be out in the morning. Great, bank holiday weekend with no hot water. What is with this boilers uncanny psychic ability to blow up only at weekend's, high days and holidays? It blew up the day before New Year's Eve once leaving me without heating or hot water for 48 hours in freezing weather. A fairly major concern when the temperature is dipping low enough this evening for me to need the heating on. Anyone else might be sweating but typically I'll be shivering. Maybe I need better fat reserves. Maybe not. For the good of my sanity an all. Better to freeze than be fat in these strange days.Despite being tipped out of bed at 6am by neighbour, I still had to get up at 8am in case the boiler man arrived. Anytime between 8 and 1. Apparently. Thank god for blogging and sofa's to lie on. I left neighbour in bed. The boiler man turns up around 10 am, does a great deal of umm'ing and ahh'ing, and immediately asks why I don't get a new boiler. Er, because it's a rented house, I'm not made of money, and despite the fact the boiler is a pile of crap unable to get through a season without breaking down its a constant amusement to me that my landlord spent £3000 on a boiler worth £300, and besides, isn't that sort of your job...to fix it? Hmm, perhaps not.
I offer the boiler man a cup of tea while he mutters darkly about never having seen anything like it, no access anywhere and stupid systems. I am wise to this and know this means sending off for 'parts' and that I will be without water and heat for days. I leave boiler man to it. He's happy in that way men excited by such things get when presented with problems they do not immediately understand. Who can't relate to that? Or maybe I've just had too many boyfriends like that. The anorak did after all send me a text to say 'someone's written anorak on my special Mr Fussy car polish, all fingers pointing at you curly!' The fact that I had a boyfriend we both called anorak speaks volumes. Ah well. I find something about men like that deeply comforting. Probably that they are the polar opposite of my father.
So, it's Saturday morning. The boiler man is in my bathroom muttering away. I'm blogging in the lounge in my vaguely could perhaps be sexy in the right context shorty pj's, with very definitely not sexy under any circumstances pink fluffy dressing gown over the top having hoped I might have a bath after the boiler man had gone. I have a neighbour in my spare bed wearing nothing but panties and vest top. Poor boiler man. I realise I'm going to have to do something before my neighbour falls downstairs and shocks the boiler man into leaving. I make neighbour some tea, and take it upstairs, pushing the mug up one stair at at time ahead of me as I go. Crude but effective.
An hour or so later I go back into my own house. The boiler man tells me he's tried everything. The boiler is a stupid system. No access. He can't fix it. Needs parts. He has to order parts. He'll be back on tuesday. Don't suppose I could wait 'til wednesday? No, I cannot wait 'til wednesday. I suspect that on tuesday someone else may come out, fulfil the terms of the home care agreement and be unable to fix the boiler because the parts have no arrived. Great. No wonder I slept the rest of the day away.
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