That was the week that was!

The Monday of our first week home was not too eventful, we decided in the afternoon to go out and try and replace our broken shower. We toured the DIY stores, and eventually agreed on one the same make as the old one, but a slightly lower wattage, and a push button to start and stop it, as sometimes I struggled to turn the knob on the old one.
We noticed that  our boiler was beginning to play up, it kept on going to overheat, and the domestic water supply seemed extremely hot. In the post, we had had a reminder that the  boiler needed servicing, so I rang up and booked an engineer to call. This was arranged for the Wednesday morning.
On the Tuesday, I had an appointment with the Osteopath. I also phoned our old friends, but the wife was sleeping and I was unable to visit, as she had an appointment that afternoon. So I spent some time going through holiday pictures with a view to uploading some on facebook.
I was late to bed that evening, and I noticed some water on the kitchen floor near the sink. I soaked it up with a cloth, but it kept coming. I got everything out of the cupboard, checked all the connections etc, all was dry. The water still kept coming so I attempted to turn off the stop cock. It wouldn't budge so I tried pliers, WD 40, but nothing would make it budge. I woke husband and he came down, he said he was too tired to think straight and as it wasn't a complete flood to leave it till the morning. So I left my super absorbent cloth down by the sink.
On the Wednesday Our Daughter had had to rearrange her hours so that she could take Nat to his new school for a visit, which she had to attend, so we collected Lydia, brought here here, and she obligingly went up for a nap. I went out to Sainsbury's, the engineer came and was sorting out the boiler.
When I got home he explained why he thought the boiler was overheating, a switch in the airing cupboard had somehow had been switched. Whilst he was outside checking the flue, I went out to the bin, and commented I thought there was a faint smell of gas, to which he replied, 'oh that's normal'.
He declared everything safe and usable, and went on his way. Husband collected Nat, and we looked after the children, but it was an early finish for their Mum
The water was still coming onto the floor, so I rang the water company Insurers and they agreed to send someone out, but it would be evening. I pulled out the washing machine, and checked the connections, and then could get my hand behind the plinth under the sink unit,on the floor, it was incredibly wet under there. To be on the safe side I disconnected the washing machine taps at the wall.  Everything came out of the cupboards and was piled into plastic boxes from the loft. Fortunately I hadn't returned them to the loft after their previous usage. In my hurry to get dinner over before the water engineer came, I managed to burn my mouth on hot  shepherd's pie, and that resulted in blisters.
The water engineer came, said the leak was under the sink unit, and he would have to take the plinth off to access it. He said the plinth would have absorbed water anyway, and it came off so easily in pieces, and husband was hit in the chest by a spurt of water. Unable to turn the stop cock, the plumber had to do it outside. He showed husband how to turn it off outside. He said it was the supply pipe, and not really covered under the terms of our insurance, but he was prepared to fix it. I was ready to argue that as it was inside the house it should be covered.
The pipe was duly fixed, the water turned back on, and I put some clothes in the washing machine to wash. I couldn't understand why the programme went for a few minutes then returned to the beginning, then it suddenly dawned on me that  I had turned off the water taps at the wall. I dived into the cupboard, turned them back on and Presto! the washing machine worked. Phew!
Earlier I had tried getting quotes for fitting of the new shower, and one company had been very pushy, they had rung me back and said it would cost £64, but when they rang back to say the plumber was on his way, I was told £64 per hour. I was furious, as I'd had a quote for a total of £75 elsewhere. They were adamant they had not told me £64, and they then said it was plus VAT. So I cancelled the visit. I had enough stress without that!
The next morning, just after 6, husband came back into the bedroom and said, 'I'm paddling down there'.
I groaned, and dragged myself out of bed, found a pair of flip flops, down into the kitchen, and I could see what he meant, 'water water everywhere'. Husband was wielding the mop, to not much avail. He went outside and turned the water off as the engineer had shown him. I bought a 'miracle cloth' a few years ago, from a demonstrator in Homebase. I fished that out, and all the microfibre cloths I could find, and in about an hour, between us we had mopped/soaked up all the water.
I washed, got dressed, had my breakfast, then contacted the water board. I went alone to pick up Lydia.
The water board rang back, to say the engineer was busy, but he would come as soon as he could. Husband reiterated that we had young children in the house. Lydia went up quite happily for a nap, I took a large bottle of bleach upstairs for emergency use, if we could not flush the toilet, then went off to the supermarket and bought some very large bottles of water, for use for drinking and filling the kettle. Husband collected Nathaniel from his session at his new school, and I gave both of the children lunch.
The engineer duly arrived, we explained the problem to him, and he set about investigating. He  eventually fixed the leak, and said that he thought the previous chap had fitted a wrong valve. We were just grateful to have the water back on, but when I thought of those in the world who have no regular supply of clean water, my inconvenience seemed trivial. We spent so much time reading to the children that day, some days they seem to prefer being read to to playing.
On the Friday morning  I went for a much needed haircut. Afterwards I went into town, and whilst I was there, was looking at little folding garden chairs. Both children have  a habit of toppling ours over, as the lawn slopes. I thought if they had smaller ones they might be more stable, or at least they wouldn't have as far to fall. I rang husband and he said he had been planning to join me in town. Eventually we chose some from a shop called Trespass, as they were patterned and not character, we chose two the same colour to avoid 'She's got my chair' etc.
Some time in the afternoon our new neighbours knocked and said that they could smell gas, could we smell it? They were thinking of ringing the emergency number. I said we'd had our boiler repaired and serviced, but yes I could smell gas outside the house. When I checked, it was definitely coming from our boiler flue, so I said I would deal with it. I phoned and was told to turn the gas off at the meter, and as I opened the cupboard,  thought I got a faint whiff of gas. The engineer came within a short while from The National Grid and tested the supply, he found that the boiler flue was putting out pure gas. He capped everything off, and as I said to him, as I had to the person in the office, 'We only had it serviced 3 days ago'. I got the same reply, 'Yes but they can go at any moment'. I had to ring British gas to rebook an engineer, for the next morning,  and rethink dinner. It all had to go in the microwave. Fortunately, we still have a hot water storage tank in our airing cupboard, and that has an immersion heater, so we would be ok for hot water.
Next morning the Gas Engineer arrived. He was there for ages, checking everything, phoning for advice, but he could not contact his boss. He was pretty sure we had a leak on the actual meter,as well as in the boiler, but as the meter is not covered by the insurance, wasn't 100% sure they would agree to fix it. Again I was prepared to argue that is their meter, fitted by them. Whist he was there in my kitchen, I said to husband, 'I can't be out there making lunch whilst he is there', so we agreed I would go to the M&S simply food at the petrol station on the dual carriageway,and get sandwiches and rethink dinner, as I would have no cooker except my combi microwave. I also rang up and cadged Sunday lunch from our Daughter. At the petrol station, I was tempted by double chunky Kit Kats, and after my sandwich scoffed mine, husband is usually very good with chocolate, and as he started on the second finger, he commented he didn't usually just scoff them. I said 'Welcome to the world of comfort eating.'
The engineer made everything safe again, he had asked a colleague to do the next job on his list, and then said he had to go and see an old lady who had no gas at all. I said to husband, 'I'm surprised he didn't think I was an old lady.' He said he would return on the Monday morning.
So we had lasagne and salad for dinner, I cooked the lasagne on combi, and on Sunday after the morning service at church, we went off to our Daughter's for Sunday lunch. We were pretty exhausted after an emotionally stressful week, but couldn't manage to doze off for an after lunch nap.We declined their invitation to go to the park, and came home instead, where we both managed to doze off and sleep so deeply that we awoke too late to make the evening service.