Why is nothing ever easy? Don't you ever wonder what it would be like if there were no complications, and every corner you turn the sun is shinning brightly? But that's not real life I suppose, and most of the corners we turn we are faced with storms. Which is why I have spent the last two weeks wondering if I was ever going to find the corner with the sunshine again.
We have, a very old back boiler which heats our water and radiators. I say very old, I mean very very old, like over 40 years old. We have loved and nursed it along in the hope it would just go on forever. So, when the pilot light went out at the beginning of last week, I got the feeling only someone whose boiler is forty years old and knows its living on borrowed time gets. Fortunately, I had the gumption to pay an monthly insurance to cover call outs and repairs, but not the cost of a new boiler, so I glumly rang British Gas and as I am on the list of what's deemed as being vulnerable I had an engineer out the following day who simply relit the pilot light. All was well for a couple of days until it went out again, so, I had watched the engineer carefully and figured I could fix this myself, and so relit the bugger myself. My happy cockiness at lighting the thing myself soon turned into misery as I realised the thing had gone out a few minutes later , no amount of fiddling about was going to relight it and I pronounced it dead. All in all, we spent another three days with no hot water, luckily we have an electric shower. Anyway, on the fourth day out came the engineer again (I seemed to have slipped down the list) and he replaced the Thermo couple, and TADAAA hot water was restored with the reassurance that the boiler was still ticking by ok, so goodbye and good luck.
Literally, the engineer had been gone less than an hour when I could hear water dripping out of the over-flow pipe from the loft onto the conservatory roof. So I Googled 'water dripping from over-flow' and it said the ball cock in the water tank was probable stuck and just needs a little nudge.
So, up I go into the loft with my torch, cos I am a woman (a blind woman, but nether the less a woman, and I got this) and find the tank..its the great big square thing with a lid on it, under the lid is a butt load of water and a orange ball connected to a bit of metal, so I get the torch in the right position and I give the ball a little wiggle....WELL...imagine my surprise when the ball and its bit of metal detached its self from the tank and a shit load of water began pouring through the hole filling the tank quicker than the overflow could deal with. To be honest. It took me a few seconds looking at this ball in my hand and then the pouring water before I could move my arse into action, and then I am pretty sure I just jumped out of the loft hatch as I don't really remember using the ladder, and running down the stairs screaming to anyone and everyone to turn the cold water off at the mains. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I could no longer hear pouring water from the loft and relaxed a little until I realised that the dish washer and the boiler was still on...with no bloody water, so another mad dash to turn off the timer for the boiler and the dishwasher.
Then comes the panic of the cost of repairs and finding someone to help me. Enter in my dear friend and her lovely husband who came to my rescue and two days later we were up and running again. By now we had spent most of the week without either the hot water or any water at all, and found ourselves queued outside my Mums bathroom waiting for showers for two nights.
Anyway, just as I thought it was sorted, there was the dripping again on the conservatory roof, at the same time my phone buzzed and it was a text from my friend asking if all was ok, so I said we had a drip. Within 15 mins, my friends husband was back rummaging around in my loft. WHO would have known....I have TWO bloody tanks in the loft and fudge me if the second ball cock wasn't as rusty and buggered as the first one!
Luckily this was also fixed quickly and by Saturday morning we had hot water again and everything appears to be running as normal. Although it seems that we are going through some really testing times at the moment, I kind of figure someone was looking over me when the ball cock went for if we had been away when it broke the damage it would have caused to our home is unimaginable, and judging by the rate the water poured through the hole our home would have been floating down the High Street within a couple of hours, so yes, I suppose I feel lucky!
This positive feeling led to me deciding that I shouldn't leave things to chance and stop putting things off because who knows what might happen tomorrow. So, when I tripped down the stairs on seemingly nothing but fresh air on Saturday morning I was bemused. I checked the stairs, running my hand over the carpet to look for objects I hadn't seen, as I sat back on my knees with my feet in my trainers tucked underneath me horrible images of tripping over a mouse..or worst still...a FROG (ewwww) came flashing into my head, shaking the image out of my head I went to stand up and realised the little rubber bit on the front of my trainer was hanging off...Phew, no Frog...but bugger I need either to glue the little rubber bits or go shopping. I tend to buy the same style of trainer each time because, 1) they are a familiar fit, no real changes so I don't have to compensate and 2) My balance doesn't seem to like different shoes on my feet and for some reason my brain sends all sorts of strange messages around my body.
On further inspection of the old trainers it seemed I had walked a hole in the bottom of them too! These weren't a cheap pair and I have only had them since March, but whatever, the fact is I cant wear anything on my feet that might cause me to be more of a hazard than I already am.
TKMax caught my attention (as I hate shopping, especially on a Saturday) it seemed the quickest option. Do you think I could find a similar pair of trainers in TKMax...not on your bloody life! In the end I brought a pair of Sketchers, they fitted well and were comfortable so I parted with £40, and we were home before lunch, perfect.
Now, I know, if I buy anything that I am not familiar with I have to practise with them, so I needed to get used to the grip on the bottom of them and the overall feel of them, they are very light and spongy, but they sort of tip you forward onto your toes, so I need to make compensations for that when I am moving outside of my house with them on. Its a bit like driving a car with your wellies on, you would have to concentrate harder on feeling the peddles through the thick soul of the wellies, I have to do exactly the same only I need to concentrate on feeling the floor, and I need to feel the floor to feel safe. I did not feel safe wearing my new trainers!!
Monday I wore them to work, this was a very bad idea, my balance, which was already dodgy from tripping down the stairs was completely off, and I spent a lot of time mis-judging things and tripping over. By the time I got home I had a banging head ache and I felt sick. I went to get a glass out of the cupboard to make myself a drink and I'm not really sure what happened but I went to shut the cupboard door but my face was still in the way and I shut my head in the door...sounds funny, but it was the last straw, so I sat down and didn't move until bedtime. But bedtime did not bring sleep and the constant motion in my head was feeling unfair, I wouldn't have minded if I'd had overindulgent night on the beer, but all I'd had was a new pair of trainers!
So, today I stayed home, partly because my balance still isn't right, but mostly because I cannot function without sleep. I have been practicing walking around in my new trainers and even managed to walk Ralph around the block without too much trouble, so I seem to be adjusting to the new feel. Ohhh how I miss the days of chucking on the first pair of shoes that I find, not having to worry about what effect they might have on my day. Gone are those days, if only losing your sight meant just loosing your sight and not all the other unseen stuff that goes with it, stuff that people just don't understand or realise.
At the moment I haven't slept for twenty-four hours, so I've no real idea if any of what I've written makes sense or what the spelling is like, so you will have to forgive me and I'm off to bed.
Speak soon xx
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