Left out in the cold by puzzled plumbers and broken boiler
Monday afternoons are usually quiet at the Co-op. Not this week. The place was packed with frenzied folk stocking up in readiness for the Beast from the East, a calamitous weather event formerly known as winter.
“Trouble is, Allison, we’ve gone soft,” sighed Barbara behind the till when I told her that we’d been without heating since Friday. “Do you remember when there used to be ice inside the windows and we had to get dressed in bed?”
I don’t need to remember, Barbara. I’m living it. With exquisite, nay, sadistic timing, the boiler at Pearson Towers has packed up. Press the Reset button and it makes that throat-clearing sound a choke used to make when you were trying to start a car. (Himself and I had a lovely time reminiscing about chokes and starting handles; it seemed fitting as we are so cold, we are basically in 1964.)
So far, we have had three plumbers from the same firm round to examine the beleaguered Baxi. My favourite verdict came from Dennis. He sucked his teeth, shook his head and declared: “Could be because it’s too cold outside.”
“Er, it’s a central heating system. Isn’t the general idea that it should work when it’s cold outside?”
Dennis gave me that look plumbers reserve for civilians and other wayward thermostats and said he was ordering “parts”. Plumber No 2 spent several hours cleaning it out before departing, saying that he too was ordering parts.
By now, we were both wearing a Trapper hat with earflaps.
Plumber No 3 wouldn’t come out until Himself had paid for the previous work in full. If you were being picky, you might have pointed out that the work clearly hadn’t worked, what with us still huddling around the woodburning stove like permafrost ghosts in Game of Thrones. But people with incipient frostbite don’t argue. When he did turn up, No 3 advised us to get a new boiler – he would never fit the one we’ve got because it was so unreliable! Oh, and that’ll be three and a half grand. Honestly, I’d weep, but my tear ducts are frozen.