Yeast

The boiler's broken.

The trouble is that it's not just broken, it's probably heading for the boiler graveyard in the sky.

On Friday evening I was out, rehearsing for my play, saying lines that weren't supposed to be there and not saying lines that are, due to a serious memory problem that I seem to be suffering of late. It had been a technical rehearsal, just two weeks before the play, so we had all arrived early to help with the set and everything else. It had been a long day.

I left feeling very upset with myself, partly because I seem unable to grasp this part, despite countless hours spent learning it, hence lack of blog this week, and partly because I have this annoying habit of being oversensitive whenever anyone says anything remotely personal to me. This means that I probably annoy people more because I am over sensitive than because I need another week to learn my lines. And besides my lines were SO much better than they were the previous week, and it is a VERY large part, and why did no-one see that........... Well of course no-one is interested. That's the job in hand. No-one wants to know how much work you have put in. They just want the job done.

So I got home, expecting full sympathy and understanding, to be greeted by hubby with the news that he was very sorry to interrupt me, but that there was a much more pressing issue at stake. The boiler had died. It had in fact been throwing out yellow flames before he had turned it off. So it was fortunate that he caught it in its stride. Otherwise we might not have been there to catch it all.

That's the problem when you buy huge old house, with huge mortgage for huge family. You don't have anything spare to fix the old bits. Like a boiler throwing carbon monoxide poisoning into the room.(Well, some might..... We don't.) Furthermore, in old houses they didn't think that when they attached gas boiler to old fashioned chimney that European legislation would dictate that this would be illegal in twenty years time, and as such, not only will we need a new boiler, we will need an entirely new system, and we will probably have to knock down some (albeit disgusting) conservatory style lean to affair, so as to accommodate new boiler on an outside wall somewhere close to where it currently is. It is a major job. Major. And there is NO scope on the mortgage for an extension of funds.

Of course I had been hoping for a while to replace said boiler, with a range. One a bit like the one that was taken out of the said fireplace by our predecessor. In the days before the fashionable became unfashionable, before it became fashionable again. In the days when they thought that a white boiler slightly yellowish with age was more attractive to look at than a black cast iron range. I live in wild hope. I even have picture of a nice green range on the wall above the boiler. If you close your eyes to a certain point and concentrate very hard, you can almost see what it would look like, and if you get really good at it you can miss out the yellow boiler from your sights all together.

I did wonder momentarily if I could blame my line learning on the boiler's emissions. Probably not. It's probably down to needing more hours...... Perhaps we could invent a new calendar with a twenty eight hours day. Those extra four hours are probably all I need.

So I had less sympathy than I wanted, and I was cold too.

The next morning 6 year old came downstairs. "Mummy", she said. "Yes" said I, wondering what little piece of wisdom was about to come forth. "The boiler's broken." "Yes I know." I said. "That's a nuisance". "And you know that bread you made last night for us? In the breadmaker, before you went out?" "Yes" said I. "Well, I think that you had forgotten to put something in it. Because it was all flat and tasted like dough."

Amazing what a bit of yeast can do.