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It never rains

Head Rambles Posted on by

but it pours.

We have a little nest egg, or rainy day fund if you like. In the early days of pensionable age the fund was reasonable enough. It was an ostrich egg in the nest.

Since then I have had cause to dip into it a few times. The new garden gate wasn’t cheap, nor was demolishing the beech tree. There were a few other minor items like a new car but the fund remained and was a grand source of mental security.

I ordered central heating oil on Monday. It was expensive but there was enough in the account that I didn’t need to dip into the savings. After all is said and done, I have to do my bit for Warble Gloaming so a good supply of non-renewable CO2 producing oil is essential.

Yesterday, I was sitting here contemplating my navel when I heard noises from the garden. Grand. I now have a full tank of oil.

Except that I don’t.

Normally they deliver without bothering me. I have already paid online so they deliver and fuck off, just leaving a receipt in the letter box. They usually text me afterwards too just to confirm they had been.

Yesterday however I got a phone call. It was a very pleasant young man from the oil company’s office to explain that there was a bit of a problem and they hadn’t delivered as much as I had asked. Apparently the delivery fella had noticed a crack in my oil tank and didn’t want to fill in case the whole thing split wide open.

Fuck!

Nice Young Man was very understanding and a little impressed with my vocabulary. We discussed the options which wasn’t hard – there was only one. The tank had to be replaced but they had a bloke who fixed just that problem. He said he would pass on my number to said bloke. This was a specialised task so I wasn’t going to employ some gobshite who had advertised on Farcebook.

About an hour later the phone rang again. It was another Nice Young Man who was going to solve my little problem for me. He seemed to know what he was talking about as he asked all the pertinent questions about the size of the tank, what exactly it was supported on and how accessible it is. He was somewhat alarmed that the tank is nearly full as it means he has to pump it out before replacing it. I said there was no hurry but he disagreed – the fucking tank could split open at any time! So he’s going to do the job on Friday as an emergency.

I must say I don’t relish the thought of eight hundred litres of kerosene flooding the garden. I reckoned it might be a bit of a fire hazard. Herself reckons it would add value to the house, having our own private oil-well on the land.

I went out to examine the tank. Sure enough, there was the crack. It was quite a respectable one so at least I knew the whole exercise wasn’t a scam. The only problem is that the garden has grown somewhat around the tank so I had to do some judicious pruning and hacking of tree branches. It’s reasonably accessible now provided the Second Nice Young Man is a contortionist.

Friday is going to be expensive. Fuck! On top of the oil delivery bill it’s a bit of a sting.

Our ostrich’s nest egg is now a wren’s nest egg.

 

Comments

It never rains — 13 Comments

  1. We are in decent shape here, but it always seems like it isn’t quite as much as I thought it was.
    I’d much prefer to be in good shape rather than decent.

    I remind myself once in a while of something dad used to tell me.
    “Life is hard, get a helmet.”

    • I’m still in decent shape here, taking decent shape to mean I’m not worried about paying for just about anything that may crop up. I’m just slightly closer to the edge of decent shape than I was.

      • Well another thing dear old dad had to remind me of several times was “Son, you are never going to have everything you want, but as long as you have everything you need, you are ahead of a lot of folks”.

        He was a pretty smart old bird.

  2. Thank God you are still doing your bit to provide the world’s trees and plants with their preferred food -CO2.
    On the other hand perhaps the powers that be do not care if the world’s plants grow sickly and under-produce.
    If the population of the world is reduced by 50 per cent by a “vaccine” jabbing programme puny plants will, no doubt, supply sufficient.
    It feels much better now I understand that. Pheew.

  3. That has got me thinking. I have a metal tank installed behind the boiler and hot water tank combo all together in a little room. To replace it would mean breaking down the front wall and taking out the boiler to gain access.

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