Back in England for a week, and almost everything that could go wrong, has gone wrong. And of course the weather has been bad - cold and rainy. It all reached a peak on Friday night when I discovered there was no hot water, just as I stepped into my bath.
On Saturday morning we realised that the boiler wasn't working at all, so we switched on the immersion heater. After a couple of hours, it seemed that the immersion heater wasn't working either.
Photo from Flickr/Bashed. Creative Commons Licence.
After a number of abortive attempts to find someone who could come out and fix one or the other, or preferably both, we decided we could manage until Monday morning. Let me tell you, it's not as easy as it sounds.
Photo from Flickr/esterase. Creative Commons Licence.
Of course, Monday morning dawns, nothing, nobody arrives. Mid-afternoon the plumber does turn up but doesn't have the right parts. The immersion heater provoked one of those long intakes of breath and a shake of the head. Apparently it's marked in Fahrenheit! How long have we been using Celsius in the UK? Forty years? More?
So, for the time being, keep on with the cold baths.
BUT. At least the weather has improved, considerably, and I managed to get right to the top of St Catherine's Hill. Something to be grateful for (with apologies to Solomon).
