It's surprising how much one's mood is improved by being warm. These past few days have been a bit of a nightmare. Let's review, shall we?
Tuesday was pretty much OK, although it was a bit tiring trying to clear a path to the radiator in my computer room (the most important room of them all, of course.) And then I had to sleep on the sofa because my bed was covered with displaced boxes and computer equipment.
Wednesday caused me to be up at 8am, which is no fun. In the cold. And for no reason since the Fixing Squad turned up two hours late. Not that I'm ungrateful because under ordinary circumstances I would be waiting until some time in late January to get this sorted out. So I'm grateful.
All of Wednesday is spent sitting, in the cold, on the sofa, with a permanent headache, trying to do some work on my laptop but not really getting much done, moving more bits and pieces around so that the guys can drain my radiators and change the bits on the end of 'em. The issue of the limited access "in the room with all the computers" is raised, but the guys are up for diving under the desk so we'll be fine. I realise just how much stuff I have in my place and how the whole house of cards comes crashing down when you have to move a few things around. I was planning another "big tidy-up" over Christmas anyway, but this timing wasn't really ideal. Anyway, despite the clutter, much work is done.
As the gentlemen leave for the day, I grab some hot food and go to bed - on the couch, again - at 8pm! Living large.
Thursday morning rolls around, and this time I get no unexpected lie-in because they really do turn up at 8am. There's not too much left to do, which is nice, but some of it is kind of fiddly. I spend more time on the sofa. I more or less forget about doing any work, it's not likely to happen. I find myself watching the Jeremy Kyle show. I am still cold, and I still have that permanent headache, which I'm not sure is from the cold or from sleeping on the sofa. I also have about six visitors, and a delivery of Christmas shopping from Tesco, which I can't even find room for on the floor, let alone in the cupboards, which have had to be emptied in order to have holes and pipes drilled through them. I'm filled with this strange sense of dread - I just wish this was all over. I try to busy myself to make my mind off the discomfort of the situation.
Thursday afternoon and nearly everything is done. Generally speaking it all went pretty well, apart from some unexpected burn marks on the walls, but they'll be behind furniture so that's OK. The new deluxeomatic gas boiler is installed and fired up, and that sucker heats up the radiators pretty damn fast, which is nice. My idle enquiry about whether there should be quite such a smell of gas causes a small amount of running around, followed by an urgent shouted request from upstairs to "Aaargh turn the gas off!!"
Problem's swiftly solved, and job's a good-un. We have heat, as well as instant high pressure hot water, which I did not have before. It seems to go a funny milky colour after a few seconds, which I'm not quite sure about, but one thing at a time.
It's explained to me that there's some remaining electrical work to do, which of course must be done by a qualified electrician rather than the qualified gas guys who have been doing the job so far. (They themselves commented that they were only authorised to blow the place up with gas, not with electricity.) But a lashed-up extension cord and a spare plug which I had to take off an old TV will keep us going until tomorrow morning when the full monty of proper connections can be made.
Thursday evening - A few hours to decompress and it's surprising how much better I feel for being warm again. My headache is almost completely gone, and a few packets of crisps, a chocolate eclair and some cherry coke have gone down really quite nicely indeed. Life is good, and my mood is even sunny enough to write a blog entry.
I have heat, I have light, I have food, I have family. I feel human again. Although I may need to sleep on the sofa for just one more night - which hopefully might encourage me to begin serious efforts to throw away some of this junk sooner rather than later. After all, no sense in moving the same old junk back into the spaces I moved it out from, is there? Let's see.
I feel good. I feel better than James Brown. And there's nothing not to like about that.
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