Repair Window

This morning I'm going to be hanging out at home waiting for the boiler repair engineer. Our boiler has mysteriously started leaking. For a while I'd find a puddle of water on the counter beneath it. Lately the puddle has disappeared but the system still isn't holding water -- I have to refill it every few days. If it gets low the hot water gets wonky and my shower turns cold right when I need to rinse off, and is there anything worse than that?

So, anyway, British Gas is coming to hopefully get that repaired. And then they're coming again on Thursday because our drains at the side of the house are blocked up again. It's not sewage, just wastewater from the sinks and washing machines, and from upstairs as well. Obviously we need to get that flowing, and because of our landlord's home care policy, that responsibility also falls to British Gas.

Meanwhile my boss is probably annoyed because I'm missing work to get all this done. The repair people give a "window" of time when they're going to show up -- today I'm just missing the morning, and how much of it depends on how early the guy gets here. Thursday is an "all day" window -- and what the heck is the point of that? -- so I could be out a lot of the day or a little, once again depending on arrival time and ease of repair.

We also have new couch delivery next week, so I'll need to be home then. Job? What job?

I moved around some of the plants in the living room, to prepare for winter and the need to bring tender plants indoors. I shifted the yucca -- which is almost too tall for the ceiling -- to the left of the door and the little rubber tree to the right. That's a sunnier spot, and it's also where the mandarin orange will eventually go when it moves inside. Other than that, it's just a matter of protecting a few geraniums, and I can find space for those.

The rubber tree has come along well since I rescued it from a dumpster many months ago!

Yesterday I was working in the library when a tired-looking little girl came in toting her books. She sat down at one of the tables in the otherwise empty room. I asked her why she wasn't in class, and she said she had to leave to do something or other, but now she was done. There were still five or ten minutes to go before the next class, so I said, "Well, maybe you should go back?"

"Oh, I just couldn't!" she said. Something about the way she said it struck me as so funny. I let her sit there and gather her wits.

(Top photo: Islington, on Sunday.)