Fuck you British Gas, WFH, tidy up/baking, Snowman & goodbye Merlin

British Gas engineer turned up really early today, I was most impressed as it is Xmas Eve. Unfortunately after about 30 minutes he called me through to talk to me. Turns out the heat exchanger that he was supplied to fit in the boiler was the wrong one. He said that he didn't know if the wrong part had been ordered or just the wrong one picked off the shelves. He tried to ring around and source one for today but sad that this wasn't possible. He double checked exactly what is required and will be back again on Thursday to fit it. That's just great! The festive period with no hot water or central heating, deep joy! That will be over five days that we've been without them by the time he comes back on Thursday.

We have registered a complaint with British Gas although this still makes no difference to the timescales. Fuck you British Gas!

The only saving grace is that we have a gas fire in the living room and the oven will be working overtime over the next couple of days so we won't be completely freezing to death and it is, thankfully, fairly mild at the moment rather than freezing!

I was working from home today but there wasn't really a whole lot to do which made the whole experience much better than usual. That's the beauty of have skeleton crew cover over holiday periods, there is never any urgency to do anything which I have no objection to LOL. I tried to keep my spirits up listening to Xmas albums from Abney Park and Twisted Sister, namely:
Through You Eyes On Christmas Eve (Abney Park)
Dark Christmas (Abney Park)
A Twisted Christmas (Twisted Sister)

The good thing about working on Xmas Eve is that we get to finish early. At 14:00 I signed off for the last time and don't have to go back until 2nd January! No rest for the wicked though as it was then time to start doing some tidying up to get the house ready for tomorrow! Boooo! While I was straightening various bits out, throwing stuff away and changing light blubs Toni and Jade got the Xmas baking underway!

I managed to grab a crafty ten minutes on the PS3 and had my first crack at Batman: Arkham City which would appear to be a very good game based on my initial quick run. I look forward to playing it more. The final episode of Merlin was delayed to iPlayer so that Jade could watch The Snowman And The Snowdog (and because Sam was over at Jamie's and would want to watch it). It was a sequel to Raymond Briggs' The Snowman and a worthy sequel full of the usual cute charm that we've come to expect.

This has nothing at all to do with the festive season but I thought I would spread a little joy by sharing this ever so wrong picture of Boba Fett and Han Solo in carbonite!



Evening finished off with crackers and cheese and the last ever episode of Merlin. Oh my gosh, what an amazing series. It's going to be weird not seeing it again and it will be sadly missed. It was all finished off very nicely to fit in with Arthurian legend.