No, it wasn't the end of the saga! I waited in all morning till about 12.00 then phoned to check that the engineer was coming - as I said to the girl, in light of all that's happened up to now, I wasn't taking any more chances! She looked up the appointments and told me, Oh no, it's tomorrow, not today! Me: No, it's today. It is definitely today. This is Monday. The guy on Saturday told me it would be Monday. Her: Well, it's definitely down as 23rd. I kept calm as I repeated that there must be a mistake. Give her her due, she said she would check up with the managers and see what could be done. A little later, I got another call back. This time it was John, the guy I spoke to on Saturday, apologising to me as, yes indeed, it should have been today - he had put it in for today - but somehow it had gone in for Tuesday instead! Somehow?! Me again - calmly and with gritted teeth: Well, John, I am getting to the end of my tether here. I have waited around all morning, not wanting to start doing something in case the engineer arrived (Christmas tree to put up, Christmas presents to wrap, cleaning, et cetera, etcetera). I am getting really sick of this and pretty angry, and I will not wait around all day tomorrow, I have things to do. John: Well, I tell you what! I'll put down for a call between 8.00 and 10.00 tomorrow morning. How would that do? Me: Well I have to accept that I suppose, but he had better turn up tomorrow. John: It will be one of his first jobs!
So we shall see! I am not holding my breath, but I know who I'll be phoning at 8.00 a.m. tomorrow - just to mak siccar (make sure!)!
This afternoon I went to the Art class and calmed down! It was great watching Joe paint from a sketch he made in the Dean Village, a little piece of the countryside deep in the heart of the city of Edinburgh! Just from a picture, not the real thing! It was very challenging, and to be honest, I only managed to get as far as just starting to paint by the time we had to finish up! Doing the sketch, then transferring the main lines to the art paper, took me ages! I'm getting to know a few of the class members now and we enjoy a bit of banter, making a few noises to each other of resignation that we will never be great artists, etc. but we all enjoy it! One or two are of the deadly serious brigade, one especially is very good but has no style of his own. All the paintings he has done are almost replicas of Joe's! Another is an architect and you can see it in his style! Most of the rest of us are just there for the fun and enjoyment of wielding a paintbrush and hopefully turning out something reasonably decent - and I don't think any of us are really awful!
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Tuesday
Meant to post this last night but forgot when I got home from work! Anyway, the good news is that I now have a fire that works! Heat! It's wonderful! The bad news was that it was Tam, the guy who had pronounced the fire At Risk a fortnight ago who came back to service it! I had instructions on the PC, so with a bit of bluster and blow, he set to, restored the gas supply, took some bits out of the fire, lit some matches, created some smoke, checked the gas meter and then put it all back together again and pronounced it Safe! Hooray!
Talk again soon!
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