8431/21350
I'd risked turning off the heating while we were away, planning to turn it back on remotely so that we could return to a warm house. I am a dad and have to save as much money on stuff like this as possible. If I had my way anyone who was cold would just put on an extra jumper.
Unfortunately although I turned the heating on via the app, I could see the house wasn't getting any warmer and realised that our boiler had stopped working. We haven't had the best of luck with boilers- the one in the old house tried to kill us- and the one in this house is on its last legs. Luckily my plumber friend showed me how to fix it. Unluckily there wasn't an app for that.
We returned to a house that required about 20 extra jumpers. Just one week of no heating had turned the place into a fridge. We lit a fire in the living room (there is a fireplace there luckily or we might have burned the house down) and I tried to get the springy ladder down from the loft without it hitting me, so I could crawl through the dust and adjust the pressure (you have to turn one of the taps on the bottom on fully, then gently turn the other one until the needle goes up on the dial- just saved you £80 call out - remember to turn both taps off when you're done). I don't like the word hero, but no other descriptor is appropriate in this situation. If I could learn to do this, maybe one day I could teach myself how to use a drill.
Surely the house would be warm again in an hour.
This assessment was incorrect. Cold had seeped into every floorboard and brick and refused to loosen its grip. We got home at 2 and by eight hours later the temperature had crept up from 8 degrees to about 12. We might just have to accept that our house is just a cold cave now that will never warm up again. But at least I saved money on the fuel bills for a week, before having to put the heating on constant for the next five years.
Anyway we were snug by the fire and watched ET and the kids (and I) sniggered at the bad special effects and the obvious stunt bike riders. The story still holds up. As rebellious teenagers my friends and I had refused to go to see ET as it was commercialised American rubbish (we had decided without seeing it). My parents tried to trick me into going, but I found them out and refused to go.
My principles didn't extend to helping with the washing up, but at least I prevented myself from seeing a film that I would probably have enjoyed. That young man would be disappointed to know that I'd not stuck to my principles and even allowed my own children to watch the film. The worst people in this world are those that change their mind about stuff, especially when they are wrong.
