Something seriously annoying happened to me the other day. Basically I had to go and meet someone for some work at about nine o’clock (pretty early for me – normally don’t get up until 10 because my job allows it!). However, when I went to have a shower the water was cold, and then I noticed that the heating was off and there was no other hot water – big deal. It’s pretty cold this time of year. Apparently it’s was one of the mildest Februaries on record, but I can definitely still feel the cold!

Finding out the problem was a bit of a rude awakening, but then trying to get the problem sorted out was another. I’ve never had any contact with my landlord, so getting hold of them wasn’t exactly ideal. I had to go back home and wear a couple of more layers until my flatmate came home and then we could sort it out. We finally got in contact with the landlord, who said that they’ve got home care cover with British Gas. They sent an engineer the next day when I was in and he could diagnose the problem straight away. He said that because our boiler was so old, it was only running at about 65% of its efficiency anyhow, but now it was ‘on its last legs’ to use the British term. Basically we needed a new boiler.

In the meantime I put on another pair of socks and walked around the house in my ski jacket, but the engineer came back two days later to install the new boiler. It took him a couple of hours to fix it all, but afterwards everything was back up and running again – not bad, I thought, especially as I didn’t have to pay anything. Then again, it is my landlord’s responsibility.