Here comes another one

No news is good news, in case anyone was wondering about my silence.

With the exception of missing utilities, we’re starting the new year in good enough shape.  Telephone service was restored after ten days out of action: on that day, we were also awaiting a visit from the gas man to sort the boiler.  Good news: BT improved on its mediocre target by a day.  Bad news: British Gas neither showed up nor made contact on the due date.  I looked into my account on line next day to find that we were scheduled a visit that day.  This time, the fellow did turn up, and replaced the fan on the boiler.  Hurrah: warm bathrooms again, at last!  Fortunately it had been exceptionally mild for most of the time the central heating was on the fritz.  We’d managed to heat the house and water by other means.  My two-page snottygram cataloguing the sorry chronology of failures and delays should be on someone’s desk by now, together with a statement of our out-of-pocket added costs.  Meanwhile, we’ve shut down the direct debit for their so called HomeCare offering, and identified some local chaps who can provide service ad hoc. 

The garden is pretty dismal at this time of year, but we have at least had an ad hoc garden waste collection.  This encouraged me to do a bit more tidying out there so as to make sure the bin was worth emptying!  We have a bit of colour in pots on the steps up to the grass, and at the side of the house (where passers-by get the benefit) the clematis ‘Freckles’ is flowering well.  Magnolias and camellias are budding well, and a few bulbs are timidly poking their noses through the surface.  And I’ve finally got round to emptying the last two growing bags.

Just wondering whether the latest news of Downing Street’s flouting of Covid regulations will finally consign the current Rt Hon First Lord of the Treasury to his long awaited and richly deserved oblivion.  He has been in resignation territory for ages now, but integrity and accountability are words that conspicuously fail to figure in his vocabulary.  Trouble is, the potential replacements are about as bad.