A Sabbath Gasman, an Old Boiler and A Bin Victory.

In my last missive, dear reader, I left you with Kojak awaiting the Gas Man. After several phone calls assuring me that  the service engineer was running late but would arrive I finally got a call at 3.45pm admitting that he would not make it. To say that I was annoyed is the understatement of the year.  Let's just say that the lady who phoned got her ears severely chewed. Kojak's kitchen is miniscule and the area around the boiler had been cleared from 8am onwards ready for the imminent non-arrival. As every other worksurface was taken up with homeless items it meant that preparing any sort of meal was impossible. I had not eaten since 07.30am so it was an angry and hungry Kojak who set out for the shops. I first made a call to my friendly farmer and, arriving at milking time, did the usual self-service before heading for the supermarket.
Sunday dawned and with it the doubtful assurance that the gas man would call and that Chez Kojak would be early on his list of visitations. Once again this meant an early and unwilling departure from the sprung edge 4 drawer divan. At 10am he actually arrived. He was quite taken with the ingenious contraption I had rigged up to prevent water dripping onto the kitchen worksurface, a simple device of sellotape, half a plastic bag tailored to make a chute and a measuring jug. The young man - I say young but that's a relative term of course because, being a gentleman of a certain age all policemen, doctors, gas men etc. seem to be recent school leavers. However, I digress. The young man quickly fixed the leak and was about to leave when I reminded him that the annual service had also been booked - does no-one read ze instruktions now? However, he was quite polite and I noted with approval that when he went out to check the gas meter he was careful to wipe his feet throughly on re-entry. Anyway the rest of the service proceeded without incident and the old boiler got an "A" rated seal of approval. The central heating boiler also passed....
This morning was recycling bin day so for the third day running I had to lever my carcase out of the sprung edge etc. A gentleman of a certain age really shouldn't have to do this for days on end! After two sly victories by the evil binherren I was determined to end their successes. I adopted the "visible ambush" technique and on this occasion victory was mine on all three collection fronts. By lunchtime the weekend was beginning to take it's toll so I comforted myself with a large slice of lemon drizzle cake and a nap in the armchair.