One is more the remedying of a minor niggle. Readers might recall a rather spectacular gas leak a couple of years ago. Part of the reason could be that the meter box, which is made of now-brittle GRP, was already damaged when we moved in, and is no longer weatherproof: the hinge housings on the door and the cabinet have crumbled over time, so we've had to wedge the door closed with dismantled clothes pegs and the like, and it falls off every time the wind blows. The problem is that the cabinet is recessed into the wall, and can't be replaced without building work that would require disconnecting and removing the meter for the duration. I've toyed with fitting hinges at the top and a magnetic catch at the bottom, and a number of other DIY solutions, such as building a case to fit over it in softwood. If in doubt, google. A search turned up a company in Belfast that would replace the cabinet for an eye-watering fee. The search also showed that our problem is far from unusual. Thank you, British Gas, for yet another overpriced and unserviceable offering. Another company will provide, for a shade over £120, an aluminium box that will enclose the lot, and an email received just now says it will be delivered today between 12:21 and 13:21. No kidding. We'll wait for a decent day before we fit it, however: it will need a dozen or so screws into the brickwork, and no doubt a line of mastic round it, so we'll wait for a dry day. Meanwhile, the gas meter is not working at all (the gas is coming through, but there's no read-out on the meter), even though the meter man said he'd report it last time. Hope that means that they'll charge us nothing, but I suspect we may have some wrangling ahead of us.
The other meter is not without its challenges either. Having nipped my fingers with the pliers once or twice too often while trying to get into the electricity meter cabinet to take a reading, I googled 'meter box key'. This search turned up a helpful person in Brum who has sold me a meter box key for the princely sum of £1.79, incl P&P. Next, on calling Eon to provide one reading and to explain why I couldn't supply the other, I had muzak on hold for 15 minutes before they disconnected the call. I'll wait for estimated bill: we might even have a full complement of working and properly housed meters by then. Why, when moving, would you take the meter cabinet key with you? Of course, the previous owner of the French house took the sink plug, but that's another story. [Later: the new meter box will need a dollop cut out of it before we can fit it, and it came supplied with - wouldn't you just know it? - a meter box key.]
The next calamity is a month's pension's worth. The doors between the dining room and the conservatory, sourced from a well-known big suburban shed with more than usually oleaginous advertising slogans, have never been really satisfactory. Indeed, one of them had split and and had to be cobbled together again even before the builders had left the site. 'It's got our name on it. Shite'. Another of them has now broken at the bottom pivot, and would need greater skills than ours to cobble it together again. The doors were in any case non-compliant with building regulations, which require external grade doors into a conservatory, which otherwise becomes an extension, which would fail the regulations because of the glazed roof. Paciência, as I find myself saying more and more often these days. We've had a couple of local firms in to estimate, and gone for the one whose estimate was not obviously 'avin' a larf, so hope to have decent doors in place in about a month's time.
Just in time for us to have another go at heading off to France. We've booked a later departure this time, so plan to do it in two moderate days' driving rather than one long and one short. And so what if we spend another night on the way? It won't break the bank.
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