A stranger in the Bedroom

On Sunday afternoon I was wondering why the heaters were all cold. In winter my usual place is with my back firmly attached to a heater (that is, if no fire is burning, in which case I would plant myself in front of the fireplace) in order to get warm. Of course I could take up jogging, or walk around with a hot water bottle, but that does seem very unglamorous. I decided to try to thaw out in a hot bath...that usually keeps me warm for a while. So I ran the bath water and gleefully climbed in, just to find that the water was no more than lukewarm. I thought it was time to alert Thomas, my personal "fixer of everything". Knowing that my sense of hot or cold is somewhat different from that of most people, Thomas joined me in the bath....to test the temperature of course. For once he agreed with me that the water was rather cool (he now has a cold by the way), and that the heating might be broken somehow. So my capable husband went upstairs to where the actual heater is situated, just to see red lights flashing and the word "defect" on the display. After consulting the manual and my assurances that I know that he can fix EVERYTHING, my knight in shining armor once again most bravely faced the "dragon" and pressed some switches and gave the thing a pat and it worked again after a while. However, Thomas decided that we need a specialist to come look over the thing.

Today was the big day. The specialist was scheduled to come at 12, by which time Thomas would be back from his rehearsal. He had just left, and I had just finished putting my face on, and was planning on spending some quality time with my violin, when the phone rang. It was the specialist, informing me that he would be here within 10 minutes. So I called Thomas to find out what I needed to tell the man, and there he was already. My very brave cat looked at him once and headed for the corner behind the sofa, where she remained for the entire duration of his stay. So much for moral kitty support. I showed the stranger up to the bedroom, inwardly relieved that I had already made the bed, and showed him his patient. I did feel obliged to watch in admiration for a bit, but that grew rather boring. The stranger was ok looking, but he did have a rather loud voice and seemed to take great pleasure in lecturing me on all sorts of things from broken screws to possible gas explosions. He then went to fetch a decompression machine, and I tried to talk my cat into coming out of her corner, but she ignored me. So I fled into my kitchen and vigorously started to clean all,sorts of things, while the most alarming noise erupted from the bedroom. I did consider calling Thomas again, asking him to rescue the cat and me before the whole house would explode, but I reminded myself that I was supposed to be a grown up person with a solid South African backbone....fearless to a fault, and I did not bother him, which made me very proud of myself for a short while.

After an hour and a half, the stranger came downstairs and informed me that he did not really know what the problem was and except for the broken screw things seemed ok. However, in order to fix the screw problem, an entire part needed to be exchanged and that would set us back about 100€. We are also anticipating a rather large fee for the stranger's visit this morning....

He is gone now, and the cat has emerged from behind the sofa. After inspecting her house, she has been singing arias of complaint ever since. She objects vehemently to strangers entering her bedroom. And considering the costs facing us in the near future, I'm not so keen on them either. After all, my Thomas can fix everything :-)