Shiny Things

Where shall I start?

Possibly the beginning.

Ok then.

The mission (which you must accept or you'll self-destruct in 5 seconds): Research and buy a car and then move house in one week.

1st - arrange car use for the week and the weekend in case a car is not found before the end of the weekend. Done!

Cars furiously researched, people consulted, adverts read, people called, cars visited, cars not suitable - car purchased!!! Yay! (VW Polo Genesis, 1993, red 1litre, 4 gears - large dent in front left tyre but spare is new, exhaust blowing on back section, chip in window, tax and MOT due in a couple of months so manage to get price down from £450 to 380). Not insured.... insurance furiously researched.... wait! Stop! You've got to move house now....

Arrange for the telephone line to be connected at new house.

Right, here's a really bad idea: the night before you move house go out and stay out until 4am. Make sure that you mix wine and beer so that you move house feeling slightly spinny and woozy with just the right amount of nausea to stop you from eating so that when you're carrying bags and boxes up and down stairs and in and out of the car, you're doing it sick and empty.

So, that was the start of the 5-day nightmare that has been this week so far.

Saturday, moving day. Hungover. Get to estate agent late because I can't find house keys...find in very unexpected place (dressing gown pocket!) so leave house in a rush and forget to take contract with me. As I'm sitting in the car facing an unexpected 60 mile round trip to retrieve it, I get a phone call - 'come back - we can print a copy of the contract'. Thank God. Go back in, exchange contracts, hand over painful lump sum of money (6 week's rent for deposit plus a month's rent in advance - ouch!).

Then learn that the property I've just paid to rent has a gas token meter, the previous tennant didn't return the card, the gas is not on but an engineer will be calling between 12 and 5pm. It's currently 12.30 already. I have to drive between Olney and Leighton Buzzard to move my things (I'm in Newport Pagnell - car empty, items all in Leighton, 30 miles away) so there is no way I can be there. It's about 40 miles from Leighton to Olney... me and lettings manager discuss and assume I don't need to be there as the gas meter is outside and accessible.

So I get my things from Leighton. Get to Olney - find a card from the gas engineer who efficiently arrived at 12.30 whilst I was still at the estate agent's. He didn't put the gas on because I wasn't there. Try and call British Gas back to arrange another visit. Spend a good while listening to recordings. Select option to get put in a queue to speak to customer services. It cuts me off after 20 minutes for no reason! Call back to choose a different option. The customer service line for card token meters is closed this weekend.... the estate agent is closed now too.

Go back to Leighton Buzzard for the next car load. Friend kindly invites me to stay there again... I take the next load of items to Olney, go back to Leighton Buzzard and make rest of things ready to transport next day.

Next day - call British Gas - still closed, call estate agent - answerphone, no opening times available. No opening times on website. No opening times in the information pack they sent me. Pack rest of things into car (except bedding). Drive to Estate Agent office in Newport Pagnell. No opening times on the door either. Call general customer service number for British Gas - no operatives available as the customer line is closed for maintenance. I can leave a recorded message for an engineer. Leave message. Bugger! I can't be there at the time I've arranged - got to have pool car back at work at 8.30 on Monday. Can't speak to anyone to re-arrange this because customer service lines are closed....

Go online to organise car insurance for my own car which is sitting at work after being purchased on Friday. Need insurance so I can drive to work and back the following week (no work cars are available). Get insurance - no problem. Also order broadband. Take carload to Olney and empty it out. Call manager to see if it's convenient to collect the items I'm storing at his place. Yes no problem. Drive to Great Holm (get lost, get found, get there later than planned). Drive back to Olney. Relocate items dumped in living room so there's space to unload car. Unload car. Manage to get hold of friend and arrange to stay there again that night. Drive back from Olney to Leighton Buzzard. Sleep at 1am. Wake up at 6.30, pack final items into car (bedding, external hard drive, various small items that I'd left before hastily shoved into a carrier bag which has been gathering my life over the past few days and also contains my 'important documents' in a plastic wallet....). Carrying items downstairs, carrier bag splits. Transfer items to new bag. Shower, dress, pack car. Drive to work, transfer items from work car to my car. Return work car, relocate my car to proper parking.

Call British gas - spend 10 minutes listening to recordings and then get transfered to a 40 minute queue. Call estate agent. Complain. They tell me that they didn't know there was a card meter at the proprty until they went to get a reading to put on my contract! They'll call the gas people, no problem, they'll queue and arrange an engineer. Just tell them the ref number that the engineer wrote on the card they left on Saturday. Phew! Got to get plastic wallet of 'important documents' from the car. Shit! Carrier bag not there. Have sudden image of transferring items to new carrier bag - no image of putting new carrier bag in the car! Call friend to see if she's still at home - no she's left but says she will go back and get it. Shit! Sudden panic that perhaps I left it in the work car and she's going back for no reason. Run to check - pool car has already been taken out by someone - they don't have a work mobile and can't be contacted....am almost certain that the bag was left at friend's...

Get back to desk. Retrieve message from friend asking me to tell her boss she'll be late. Go and apologise to friend's boss for making her late....

09.30 - finally start work....

Friend brings bag in just after... call agent, pass on reference number... breathe.....

Estate agent has finally managed to get through to gas people at lunchtime and can only arrange an engineer to call between 5 and 8pm. Would need to finish work at 4.30 and miss Pilates (which is re-hab and pre-paid) can't guarantee getting there by 5pm. Estate agent arranges for someone to be there from 5pm until I get there. Get there at 5.20. Engineer comes at 6.30. Doesn't even look into the house, let alone enter it. Does all he needs to outside the front of the house. So - WHAT did I need to be there FOR???? Gives me £10 emergency gas (which will be deducted from my card when I 1st use it). Tells me to re-light boiler pilot light and have boiler checked by a Corgi registered engineer.

Go to light boiler, read instructions.

"Do not light pilot light if the white hand is underneath the red hand. The pressure must be at least 1 bar. If the white hand is underneath the red hand this indicates that the system needs topping up with water"

Guess what? The white hand is WELL below the red hand.

It's now 7pm. NO-ONE is about. Sleep in a lot of clothes!! Wake up with very sore throat.

Get to work Tuesday morning. Call estate agent. Explain that gas was put on but that boiler can't be started. No problem, they will get an engineer to see to the boiler. Engineer will call me when he's going to go to the property to see if I want to go or if he's to get the keys from the agent.

2.30pm - no phone call.

Call estate agent.

Maintenance dept inform me that the landlord has asked them to cancel the boiler engineer as he's drained the heating system and even if it's filled it can't be started because the gas is off at the property. Inform the maintenance dept that the "as I said earlier" the gas is back on and there's £10 on the meter. OK, they'll re-arrange the engineer.

Work, work, work (throat really quite sore now, feel sort of ill...take drugs, feel better)

OK, engineer calls me, goes and does his thing - go home to double check it's working before choir. Go into warm house and all looks fine, hot water runs from taps, radiators are warm and not clanking.

Phew! Everything finally sorted. Set the heating timer and put on some washing. Leave to go to choir rehearsal.

Sing - lalalalaa. Get home 23.30, go to put out washing. How odd, the bottom half of it is sodden, but the top half is bone dry. Think - hmm, I'll see what happens if I rinse it. Watch in fascination as the machine fills with water and the water sits there whilst the motor whirrs and the drum stays stationery. Feel quite ill again, sleep - that's the thing...

Oversleptshitshitshit! There's still water in the washing machine....

Get to work - late! Call estate agent. Explain about washing machine. They'll get an engineer. They go to sort it out, call me back - no engineer from usual company can go out until Tuesday next week. I have a pile of sodden clothes that will be mouldy well before then - along with the machine. They can get someone from the Yellow Pages but I'd have to be there. OK, I say, but I am supposed to be working late tonight. They will see when someone's available. OK, I say, if they can go tonight I can leave work early and then go back.

They call me back - someone can come round tonight at 17.30. No problem. Leave work at 16.45 as I need to go via the garage to put air in tyres - swapped over the bent one for the spare at lunchtime. Get to garage round corner - no air. Neither pump working. Have to drive slowly home - no garages on the way. Phew, there's one on Olney high street. Get home at 17.25.

18.30 comes and goes. No engineer, no phone call.... About to leave house at 18.45 (after moving and sorting and cooking and eating)... engineer calls. Ask if he got held up.... no he specifically said that he'd be here after 17.30 and that he might be late and that they said it was OK as I would be at home for the evening from 17.30.... hmm... a semantic reversal device has been fitted to the estate agent's phone system I think... Debate this for a while and then as he's on his way I think fine... OK just come...

He comes, he's there for no more than 15 minutes. The machine is broken. Cheaper to get a new one. It drains and I can remove sodden clothes but the drum is loose so it isn't worth replacing the broken belt!

So here I am... broken washing machine, a very heavy bag of soggy washing and quite a bit to say to the estate agent in the morning!

(Nagging worry that the replacement card for the token meter still hasn't arrived.... can't see how much credit is left because the screen is blank.... presumably I don't have to wait until the gas cuts off before I can ask for someone to come out if I don't have a card by then.... oh..... my..... God.... I am going to KILL somebody VERY soon....)

At least the house is warm..... for now!

posted by bugexplorer @ 1:57 PM