The Steve Who Was Promised
I've not been here for months. I dimly planned to rectify this with a New Year's Resolution, but forgot or failed to. So I'll just have to pretend it's 1751 and we're still starting the year on March 25th, in which case, go me!, I'm two days early - gold star, pat on the back, and so on.
Anyway... Not coming here is Bad, because not only does it mean I don't get to read any of the interesting things other people post, it always means that in years to come, my life will be a blank to me. I'm forever having to check back on my old LJ to remind myself what on earth we did on past holidays etc.
Oh well. I'm not going to attempt a retrospective to catch up on what I've missed. But I will post a few of those things that have prompted me to think, "I should do a post about that," before going on to... not. (Honestly, don't get your hopes up. I'm talking items of supreme lack of consequence, here.)
So without further ado, here is the inconsequential (but pleasing) Saga Of The Steve Who Was Promised.
Our boiler died during that very cold spell in mid-January. (Yes, those unreal, distant days when it was cold and crisp and did not rain. Those days when one could walk across a field without getting swallowed up by mud up to the knee. Ah, those days..!)
Fortunately, we were able to get a gasman within hours. "Hello, I'm Dave," he said. Dave the Gas was Baffled by the dead boiler. "It's completely empty," he said, "but this should not be!" He could find no leaks, so decided it was just One Of Those Things. Since, by rights, the pressure sensor should have alerted us to the imminent emptiness of the boiler long before said emptiness occurred, he fitted a new one, and departed, leaving the boiler running happily...
But not for long! A few hours later, the boiler died again, as the shiny new pressure sensor, with the keenness of the eager, new employee, reported low pressure and shut the system down.
Cue gas man number 2. "Hello, I'm Paul!" he said. Paul the Gas obviously rolled better on his search check, since he found a leak that Dave the Gas had missed. To be fair to Dave, it was a very small leak. It had left no mark on the carpet, no moisture on the radiator, and in fact was so invisible that I'm still not entirely sure that it existed at all. But Paul seemed to think it did, replaced a, um, thing, and went away, content, and doubtless congratulating himself on being Better Than Dave.
Two hours later, the boiler stopped working again.
This time, the cause of the low pressure was rather more obvious, as water was dripping very obviously from the boiler itself, and a pipe was quite blatantly disconnected. Not so clever as all that, eh, Paul?
So a few days later, along came Gasman Number 3. "Hello, I'm Andy!" he said. Andy the Gas was a very talkative gasman. Over a leisurely cup of tea, he regaled Pellinor with anecdotes about Idiot Customers I Have Known and Idiot Colleagues I Have Known, while fixing the loose pipe of Paul, tweaking a few more things, installing a new more things. Eventually, he departed, content, leaving us with a functional boiler once again.
But not for long!
Gasman number 4 took a few days to arrange. This gave us time to speculate. So far, with 3 call-outs, we had collected 3 gasmen. Would we get a fourth to add to our collection? How many gasmen were there on the island, anyway, and what percentage of them had we already collected? Would we unlock an achievement if we collected the full set? We'd also noticed that all the gasmen had names from our generation, so what would Gas Man No. 4 be called?
Steve, we concluded. Gasman No. 4 would be Steve.
And he was! :-D
Yes, yes, he fixed the boiler once and for all, and we've had no problems with it since, but that seemed like an after-thought, really. He was indeed called Steve: the Steve Who Was Promised. We were utterly delighted...
Although I bet Steve wonders to this day why his routine phonecall to say he was five minutes away was greeted with quite so much barely-suppressed laughter.
Anyway... Not coming here is Bad, because not only does it mean I don't get to read any of the interesting things other people post, it always means that in years to come, my life will be a blank to me. I'm forever having to check back on my old LJ to remind myself what on earth we did on past holidays etc.
Oh well. I'm not going to attempt a retrospective to catch up on what I've missed. But I will post a few of those things that have prompted me to think, "I should do a post about that," before going on to... not. (Honestly, don't get your hopes up. I'm talking items of supreme lack of consequence, here.)
So without further ado, here is the inconsequential (but pleasing) Saga Of The Steve Who Was Promised.
Our boiler died during that very cold spell in mid-January. (Yes, those unreal, distant days when it was cold and crisp and did not rain. Those days when one could walk across a field without getting swallowed up by mud up to the knee. Ah, those days..!)
Fortunately, we were able to get a gasman within hours. "Hello, I'm Dave," he said. Dave the Gas was Baffled by the dead boiler. "It's completely empty," he said, "but this should not be!" He could find no leaks, so decided it was just One Of Those Things. Since, by rights, the pressure sensor should have alerted us to the imminent emptiness of the boiler long before said emptiness occurred, he fitted a new one, and departed, leaving the boiler running happily...
But not for long! A few hours later, the boiler died again, as the shiny new pressure sensor, with the keenness of the eager, new employee, reported low pressure and shut the system down.
Cue gas man number 2. "Hello, I'm Paul!" he said. Paul the Gas obviously rolled better on his search check, since he found a leak that Dave the Gas had missed. To be fair to Dave, it was a very small leak. It had left no mark on the carpet, no moisture on the radiator, and in fact was so invisible that I'm still not entirely sure that it existed at all. But Paul seemed to think it did, replaced a, um, thing, and went away, content, and doubtless congratulating himself on being Better Than Dave.
Two hours later, the boiler stopped working again.
This time, the cause of the low pressure was rather more obvious, as water was dripping very obviously from the boiler itself, and a pipe was quite blatantly disconnected. Not so clever as all that, eh, Paul?
So a few days later, along came Gasman Number 3. "Hello, I'm Andy!" he said. Andy the Gas was a very talkative gasman. Over a leisurely cup of tea, he regaled Pellinor with anecdotes about Idiot Customers I Have Known and Idiot Colleagues I Have Known, while fixing the loose pipe of Paul, tweaking a few more things, installing a new more things. Eventually, he departed, content, leaving us with a functional boiler once again.
But not for long!
Gasman number 4 took a few days to arrange. This gave us time to speculate. So far, with 3 call-outs, we had collected 3 gasmen. Would we get a fourth to add to our collection? How many gasmen were there on the island, anyway, and what percentage of them had we already collected? Would we unlock an achievement if we collected the full set? We'd also noticed that all the gasmen had names from our generation, so what would Gas Man No. 4 be called?
Steve, we concluded. Gasman No. 4 would be Steve.
And he was! :-D
Yes, yes, he fixed the boiler once and for all, and we've had no problems with it since, but that seemed like an after-thought, really. He was indeed called Steve: the Steve Who Was Promised. We were utterly delighted...
Although I bet Steve wonders to this day why his routine phonecall to say he was five minutes away was greeted with quite so much barely-suppressed laughter.