The much awaited spruce up in my marital homes powerful shower, of which I mentioned yesterday in There’s No Place Like It!, turned into a bit of an anti-climax.
Prior to her sojourn north to look after her ailing father, my estranged wife (who’d asked if I’d housesit) advised she now activates the ‘Hot Water’ functionality manually. Augmenting this snippet with guidance that the central heating element is still on a timer and will trigger automatically.
I kinda guess you can see where this yarn is meandering while it leads toward its seemingly inevitable conclusion. Particularly, when I throw into the tale’s brew that GJ Strachan has a memory like a sieve……. What was I talking about, again?
Oh yeah, the anti-climatic nature of my much looked forward to cleanse in the powerful jet stream of this residences shower. This far more performant than the water drops which appear to reluctantly leave the shower head at my mum’s house; ordinarily my place of abode.
To set you up further for the ‘punch line’, I need to make you aware the boiler in this particular chez Strachan is the traditional type. Not one of the new fangled all singing and dancing combination boilers you en vogue folk rely upon.
These wonders of gas powered heating affording you ‘down with the kids’ individuals hot water as soon as the tap is flipped counter-clockwise….. Bizarrely, even the cold tap!…… I knew I should’ve let a proper plumber install my taps!
Anyhow, with the evidence I’ve laid at your disposal, you’ll probably have worked out where this tale is heading. If you haven’t, remind me never to employ your Inspector Clouseau skillset to help me locate my missing cat Charlie.
Actually, thinking about it, even if you bear the superlative detective skills of Hercule Poiret, as I’ve not got a cat name Charlie, you’d still not get the gig.
In fact, I don’t own a cat of any moniker. I’d a grandad Charlie; however, as he passed in the early 1980’s, I know where he is so put away that magnifying glass.
My grandad Charlie, a baker by trade, gained fame as the first man in Leeds to utilise the word soufflé. His knowledge of French lexicology further extending to being acquainted with the words boulangerie, baguette and croissant.
However, this skill for recounting gallic bakery terms won him few friends amongst his fellow bakers. In fact, they earned him accusatory scorn, including labels of ‘Clever s***e”, “Charles Aznabore” and “Froggy”.
As she passed at the age of 47 from breast cancer, I never got to meet his wife (my grandma). Family folklore tells of her being a kind, loving lady who was once visited by Charlie Chaplin in a dream. The actor recommending she invest heavily in aluminium and stay clear of cheesecloth manufacturing.
Anyhow, as I wrote yesterday when journalling about housesitting the marital home I left sixteen months ago. all week I’ve been looking forward to stepping into its high powered shower. This affording far greater water pressure than my mums (where I live now), which I know I told you earlier. However, I’m checking your still listening….. Yes, you in Chester!
As you’ll have no doubt gather from my previous 500 words or so, this morning’s ensuite experience was a damp squib. Pardon the pun.
As a consequence of yours truly forgetting to manually activate the hot water system, my giddy jump into the shower was followed by a hasty leap straight back out onto the shower mat.
The catalyst of this swift retreat the freezing cold water; an experience bringing to mind the icy school showers after each games lesson. As Neil Armstrong said when he first walked on the Moon, I took “I was one small step for man…. One very hasty leap with frozen booker browns!”…. Or something like that
Anyhow, after having the hot water on for an hour or so, I’m now going to hope it’s second time lucky……. Let me be clean, Lord!!
