Brrrrrrrrrrr!

Blimey! It's COLD!

So here I was last night, in my usual place in front of my Mac - and it's pretty late, and the central heating's already turned itself off. I'm feeling a bit cold, so I go and switch the heating back on again...

GRAUNCH! BANG! CLATTER! GRINDGRINDGRIND!

Ooops. Better switch it off again...

Bugger. Central heating's not working. It's WINTER. It's COLD. I am a WUSS. I do not like being cold.

Fast forward to this morning (Sunday). I spend an hour or so calling all the gas repair people in the Yellow Pages. Sounds like it might be the fan blades. No-one has spares that they keep on hand. If they came out today to have a look it would cost $250 just for them to walk through the door (fair enough, it is Sunday). And then they'd have to go away again without fixing it and wouldn't be able to order spare parts until tomorrow anyway.

I finally have a most excellent conversation with a nice man called Nigel who saw I had called a couple of times (I hadn't left a message though) and decided to call me back to see if he could help. Initiative - I like that.

When I say "excellent" conversation, I suppose I mean he sounded very nice and I decided I would get him to come over and take a look. The rest wasn't so great though. Can't come until Tuesday afternoon. Will probably only be able to have a look and then we'll have to wait for the spare part (whatever it turns out to be) to be ordered and delivered. If it's the somethingsomethingsomething then it might need replacing and that could cost $700! Eeek! Oh - so your central heating system is about 10 years old? That's about the maximum life expectancy of that kind of system. You might need a whole new one (worst case scenario har har) which would be at least $5,000. Oh.my.god.

So I'm sitting here wearing many layers to try and keep warm. I have a runny nose because it's below 10 degrees in my house right now. It just started sleeting outside and my cat came in all wet and cold and I have no way of warming her up (oh well - at least she has a fur coat!). It's going to be like this until at least Tuesday (probably longer). Did I mention I hate being cold? This could be extreeeeeeemely expensive and I have no spare money.

Bugger bugger bugger bugger.

Ah well, I'm looking on the bright side and counting my blessings - I could be in the South Island with no power, lots of snow and more on the way.

At least this evening I can go somewhere warm for a while - I've been invited to supper by a friend who's also invited a "nice young American who's just arrived here and who is also single". Crikey! I'll keep you posted on how that turns out...

Think I'll go and buy a cheapo electric heater tomorrow. At least then I can move it from room to room and keep slightly warmer until the central heating is fixed.

Did I mention I hate being cold?

Technorati tags: New Zealand, weather, winter, central heating.