Heat...! At last...!

I received a very welcome text today from Herself, saying that the plumber had rung her at work and said that the heating system had finally been hooked up and was working.

It's been quite cold over the past couple of days with the wind direction swung around to the north-east. So the weekend was promising to be a chilly one, which our stop-gap electric heaters probably wouldn't have suited.

A blast of heat greeted me as I stumbled in the door. It was WONDERFUL!

Now we're heating every room to drive out the cold from the fabric of the building, which has aided the mould growth I've referred to in a previous post. The two "outdoor" cats have been most impressed; the indoor pussycat has fallen in love with the notion of continuous heat.

We'll ease off on the burning of the gas after the weekend. For now we're enjoying the luxury.

Gas Leak sets me all headless chickenish

So anyhow, the plumber comes and goes and connects the gas line up and signs the certification papers and all is okay. There's some concrete needs finishing by Bord Gáis and also by the plumber. We'll have the heating system running in a few days. Yadda-yadda-yadda.

We're minding the grandson over the Saturday night. On Sunday, Herself brings the wee man for a wee ramble down the road. Following some major building of coloured block houses on the carpet for rapid demolition to the shouts of "H'gain!", unsticking pieces of half eaten toast from the armchair, and tap tap tappity dancing over lots of plastic toys, I wave them off merrily at the front door.

"Do you smell gas?" Herself says, frowning. I mentally check that I took my blood pressure tablet this morning. Check. Then I have the mickey fit.

"Oh, bollix! Bollix. Bollix. Bollix. And... bollix."

"The number is on the invoice. Or in the book. Bye-eee!"

Herself and the wee man go off kicking autumn leaves while I scramble about unplugging electrical appliances and wondering if any of the cats smoke cigarettes. The black cat may well smoke a pipe.

"Hello," says a voice on the emergency Bord Gáis number (1850-20-50-50, in case you are presently still Blogging while holding your breath and really, really should phone that number before you pass out).

I gabble away about gas and smell and front garden and recent connection and....

"I'll just switch you to Dublin," the voice says. Obviously a panicked Dub is nothing for a Laois man to deal with at ten past ten on a Sunday morning.

"Hello," says a reassuringly Dublin accent.

I gabble away about gas and smell and front garden and recent connection and....

"Your address?"

I give him the address.

"You don't have a meter," he says, in a kind of half-puzzled tone. Perhaps Bord Gáis wants to know how much it can bill us for the amount of gas creeping about the driveway as we speak.

"No we don't. We're literally only connected up since yesterday."

"I'll have someone out within the hour," he says. Then he launches into the mantra about not smoking or not lighting candles to look down the pipe and so on.

Thirty minutes later a man in overalls and with the serene look of an overtime payment in his immediate future tells me the on/off valve is ever so slightly switched to "On." And maybe the blind end is a little less white-stick than it should be. He gives it a twist.

"All fixed."

"Bloody marvelous."

"Ah, sure they sometimes seep out a bit of gas before the meter is installed. It shouldn't be a problem out in the air like this."

Feck it, we haven't even heated a radiator yet.

I may push the car out of the driveway in the morning before starting it. But most likely I'll be so lazy by then I'll tell Herself to give the ignition a lash as usual.

Sure what could go wrong, eh?