The central heating is doing weird things.

It works all right but only when the thermostat on the boiler is set at its highest. As a result the house is only roasting. If I turn the thermostat down even a little bit, the system goes into a sort of mockery mode where it makes all the right noises but the radiators go cold. It’s doing it just to annoy me.

I set it to high about an hour ago. I’m still freezing. This time I gave the pump a kick and the light on it went from white to blue. The radiators seem to be heating up at last. Who knew that a colour could be so important?

Then the microwave went on the blink. I put in some stuff to heat, set the time and pressed the start button. The inside lit up and started its turning. The machine made its usual noise. it pinged at the appropriate time and switched off. The inside was still cold.

As a test, I put in a pot of cold water and gave it a good run for its money. It did its thing and when it duly pinged I took out the pot of water. Still cold.

The microwave is easy to fix – I’ll just replace it. God be with the days when you could just whip off a panel somewhere and change a fuse, or solder a loose lead. Now the whole yoke is just replaced. I have had that microwave for about twenty years so it’s had a good run for its money.

The heating is a different matter. Time to call in the expert. I have his number somewhere.

Now where did I put it?