Hodge Podge Hot under the collar

Today I am stressing. Stressing over having a new heating system installed.

Yes, it’s a good thing and is going to be marvellous this winter, but the logistics of it being installed is making me fret something awful.

We’ve waited a long time for this and I have ambivalence over it I can tell you.

It’s not the mess or having all the doors and windows open, it’s having a huge group of strangers in our home all at once. To tell the truth I’ve never been very good with strangers coming into my home. Maybe it stems from a personal attack on myself a few years ago by a tradesman. I don’t think I’ve ever got over that deep down. You can push it aside but not forget about it for good.

That’s not to say that these nice chaps are about to attack me at all or even imply it. It just makes me feel very uneasy about the situation.

We have drilling and banging and plywood being put up, people rushing in and out and going up and down the stairs, there are piles of materials all over the lawn, even whistling, it’s chaos, organised chaos, but they are working well and seem to know what their doing.

No, the hardest part for me is having them all in here at once. The job itself should take about three days, then it will hopefully all over and done with.

That will leave us with the job of making good I’m ok with that, I don’t mind at all.

I’ve just been asked where I’d like the smoke alarms, that made me smile, I really don’t mind where they go up as long as they do. It’s all exciting stuff.

My poor house looks like a cross between a bomb sight and a building sight, there’s wood everywhere, everything is misplaced and piled up in my windowsills, some is even in the shed. Early this morning, I had to disconnect my washing machine and pull it all out. Fabulous. Thinking about it though it will be all good eventually. In the meantime, I have a really good excuse to not to do laundry and I as my cooker died on Sunday I can’t even cook proper meals, so it’s a sort of quasi holiday for me, (see there’s always an up side, if you look close enough).

So here I am sat on the edge of the couch, with workmen I have never seen before rushing in and out carrying various tools, I’m clutching a cup of coffee like my life blood as the electricity is now off and I don’t know when it can go back on, waiting for these kind gentlemen to finish for the day and try to regain some small amount of normality for the children and my poor husband. I keep repeating the mantra to myself, “it will be alright.”

Maybe I will listen to myself and my mind will climb down out of that tree it’s hiding in like a tabby cat.

Here’s hoping it will all go well and fast and it will be a toasty winter heating wise.

Repeat after me… ”it will be alright, it will be alright,”…….. rocks back and forward whilst sitting in the corner by myself.