Blue Monday

Oh dear. It was this, or the boiler flue. And not wanting to seem immodest, but this is more interesting than the boiler flue. Probably.

Against expectation, the boiler decided to work today. And I had arranged an emergency in visit from the British Gas engineer because it hasn’t been working.

He arrived late morning. We are very wary of tradespeople visiting. Well, J is terrified. And there is a risk, which we’ll have to deal with. But it’s mid January, and we need reliable heating.

So here I am in the front garden, which allows me to converse safely with the engineer, who we’ve seen before. He’s not fazed by the boiler working. I explain to him what’s been going on (I’ve been keeping a “ boiler diary”, it’s come to that). So he sets to .... for the next two hours.

I’ve sealed off all areas he does not need to access, and J stays in our living room.

Ultimately, he’s finished. He has replaced the Flow Switch in the boiler, which tells the boiler that the pump is working. It seems to have been sticking. This means that the boiler thinks there is no water, so as a safety precaution, it shuts down. Sounds possible. On past experience - this being the 4th call-out in 5 months, and previous solutions have seemed plausible - I will reserve judgement.

After he had left, lunch, then I did a deep clean of the areas the engineer had had access too. Windows and doors were left open from the start. And finally, having cleared everywhere beforehand, we brought everything back in that we had taken out to make cleaning easier.

5pm, we took our masks off. What a palaver. But we do now have proper central heating - we had forgotten what it felt like.

I wonder why people think today is Blue Monday ?