Cold Water

Yesterday started well. As you know, it’s the only day we priests work, so it can be busy.

I was starting with the 8.00am service in our coldest church – the one that strongly resembles an aircraft hangar at refrigeration temperatures – so struggled out of bed as late as possible. Well, you do, don’t you.

I staggered my sleepy way into the shower and switched on, only to discover that we had no hot water. By then I was committed and it was too late to stop. Not a good start. But at least I was in and out of the shower like greased lightning.

Ed went into denial mode.

“The water must be hot! The radiators are on.”

“I’m sure they are, but the water’s cold.” (Getting testy at this point.)

“The water must have been drained off then. It’s Al’s fault (Al is our son), he spent too long in the shower last night.”

“What?” (Testiness increasing.)

“Well, you have to put the hot water on before the radiators. And the radiators are on.”

“Yes! OK! Try it yourself!” (Gave up at this point and slammed out of the door.)

Anyway, eventually Ed accepted that there might possibly be a fault with the system and rang the engineering types this morning. A guy came out this afternoon and pronounced that some pipe or other was well and truly blocked and suggested we turn on the immersion heater.

Goodness knows when any repairs will happen, but as long as I get hot water I don’t really care.

On another tack entirely, hands up all those who have no idea what a bacon buttie is?

It’s a soft roll or bap, liberally buttered (the best ones) and with a couple of slices of crispy, fried bacon inside. Definitely yummy. At our Christmas Tree festival, we make sure bacon butties feature on the menu. The aroma of frying bacon gets everybody salivating beautifully (can you salivate beautifully? Not sure it’s a beautiful activity, to be honest) and shelling out their hard-earned cash on food. Which is definitely to be encouraged.

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