101 Ways To Start 2006, #29: Get Thrown Out of a Caravan.
Well, more or less. Strictly speaking, I’m only being thrown into a very similar caravan a hundred yards away, but even so…
[Wobbly effect to denote flashback]
Returned New Year’s eve to find boiler dead. Lone porter left on duty (covering Cwrt Mawr, Rosser, Trefloyne, Hafan, Llanbadarn Campus, Pantycelyn &c) finds me small electric radiator to keep token suggestion of heat in van. Promises to get gas man out ASAP.
Gas man arrives Tuesday, delayed by Bank Holiday, which fair enough. Opens boiler, notes rust, points out where boiler has leaked onto pump and buggered it. Notes boiler 24 years old. Spare parts for said boiler no longer made or in stock. Condemns boiler, cuts off gas. Suggests new boiler will arrive. Goes to tell Accommodation Office.
Wednesday starts with me dreaming I’ve fallen over and had a pile of earth fall on me. Wake as result of conviction I can’t breathe. Knock on door: Porter. “We don’t know if we’re going to replace the boiler at all. Move into another van”. Boiler in new van just as old as the old one. No landline socket in new van. Annoying promise of no cheap calls to landlines. Prospect of having to redirect letters and such all over again. Ah crap. Porter later explains new boiler would be £1,000. This unlikely, as Hafan past it’s servicable life anyway. Phonecall from mother: Sister fallen down stairs, probably has concussion, had trouble with vision, was sick, was sick again later, is eventually taken to A & E.
[Wobbliness again]
And so we come to now, when I’m sat in Llandinam feeling thoroughly sick to the teeth with the lot of it. Spent most of week huddled up to little radiator in thick jumper watching DVDs of the second series of Lovejoy and drinking large quantities of ale.
That’s about it, really.
Stupid sodding boiler.