The gasman cometh

On that Saturday evening our Son and his wife arrived wanting to leave their car here, they were going to stay overnight at Daughter's  and get a taxi in the very early hours to Luton airport. I let them park in my garage, so that I wasn't going to be bombarded with questions from neighbours who don't even use their own garages as to whom the car belonged and why was it there, and how long would it be there for. It meant that my car was out in the garage parking area all week, so it was very handy, and husband decided he would use it all week, leaving me the Focus to use. Son had a bit of difficulty fitting the car in, but succeeded in the end,  stubborn or determined, I'm not sure which. The roof box which is stored at the back had to be placed on his car roof before he succeeded. One good thing is that a neighbour's son has moved out to live with his girlfriend, so that is 1 car that is no longer parked in the garage area, but their other 3 still are!
We gave son and wife a lift up to Daughter's house and apparently when son knocked at the door, little Nathaniel, ready for bed perked up and said 'Nanna'! so he had to be brought down to see us. I'm sure people other than me sometimes knock on their door!
As many of you probably know, we have no interest whatsoever in the Olympics, when you are not good at sport, and are bullied and called names at school because of it, it does rather take away any interest in sport. Having said that we do enjoy walking, swimming, and occasional cycling when possible, so are not couch potatoes. Our Son has actually got Olympic tickets, he thought it was a 'once in a lifetime experience'. However there was no interest in seeing the 'torch' which is actually one of several hundred, pass through our town.
We'd had dire warnings about delays springing up over town in the last couple of weeks, so set off early for church morning and evening, and duly arrived early for both services although the road in which the church is located was congested with people who were trying to rush away after seeing the torch as they had been soaked by a downpour whilst waiting. We were teased about being early twice in one day.
Oh Monday I had my 6 monthly visit to my osteopath. He works on the area where I have the disc problem, and seemed to think that it was doing ok. He has a penchant for corny jokes and was telling one about Bastille day tickets which cost 50 euros a head, which I didn't get at first. My brain is slow some days I blame it on constant tiredness. I had managed to walk to get the newspapers that morning. so did get some exercise. I seem to be sleeping a bit better, not waking during the night so much, but still need to get to bed earlier.
The rest of the day was spent tidying my kitchen, and moving stuff around to make it easy for the men to deliver my new cooker. On the previous Friday, I had received a phone call 'Mrs Y, the men are on their way to deliver your cooker' 'What? this is the first I have heard, it wasn't supposed to be being delivered till 17th-19th, I have no one lined up to disconnect and reconnect, I cannot take it today', 'Well you had better tell that to the drivers, who will be phoning you shortly, they will still try to get you to accept it'.
When the delivery men rang I was adamant, I had Nathaniel here too, they were surprised that no one had contacted me before, but said that I would get a call to rearrange delivery. Phew!
So I got a message from the delivery organisers, then rang them back to arrange delivery for the Tuesday.
I had to remove a shoerack from the hall, which was heavy, and as we tend to put things for recycling on the shoerack, I found a heap of stuff which has slipped down behind it. then I had to take a pile of stuff off the top of a bookcase, and move the bookcase in front of the understairs cupboard door, so they could manoeuvre the cooker through the doors and into the kitchen area. This also was good, because it made me sort through stuff piled amongst books on top of the bookcase. I had a minor incident with the shredder when I tried to put something through which was too thick, but managed to disconnect it, take it apart and clear the blockage. It still worked, phew again. I also contacted my 'gas safe' man, who said if I rang him after delivery he would come round and do the necessary..
Tuesday I was up bright and early, showered and dressed as deliveries start at 8.00am. They arrived at about 8.35, having phoned me about 15 minutes beforehand. All that was left to do was to drop the drop leaf of the table to give them more room. As I did this husband's mug crashed to the floor. He was quite forgiving, saying it had been chipped anyway. Then I went out for a walk before I phoned the gas fitter, who promised to come in the afternoon.  I unpacked the cooker, then separated the packing into recyclable and non, and later took a trip to the dump.
 It didn't take long, then I rang the Council to arrange collection of the old cooker, then wrestled the old cooker through the door, into the hall, and over the threshold which is raised, onto the flagstones outside. It's a good thing my osteopath couldn't see me.The old cooker was as tall as me, as it had an eye level grill. Job done, I read through the cooker manual to see how it worked, then started replacing everything that had been moved.
When husband came home I tried to light the grill to do sausages, but the grill wouldn't light, so I cooked them in the top oven, they seemed to take ages. My old top oven was very hot. There were horrible smells  coming from the cooker, but this is because they have special coatings which have to burn off. Later that evening I tried to light the grill again and it worked, obviously the coating had burned off that too. The grill is in the top oven.

Well, I guess I'll have to break this post up into more than one.