This starts as a rant - against the previous owner and part 'renovator' of my house. Everything he touched he did wrong, and it is much easier to do things from scratch than try and undo mistakes. This includes the central heating system, which has not been working properly all winter. Apart from that, it has been burning fuel at a rate which should heat the whole of northern France. When I tried to switch it on again after my Easter trip to the UK it simply refused to function, and I have been 10 days without hot water. Fortunately the weather has been so hot I have not needed heating. I kept leaving messages for my plumber but he couldn't come till today. I have been washing in cold water but it is impossible to keep things like floors clean without hot. Thank goodness for dishwashers. Today the plumber decided that he had to clean out the boiler completely, and you have never seen so much soot and gunge. He said it has probably never been serviced in ten years. When he left, with lovely hot water coming out of the taps, I had a long shower to clean myself , a bath to relax, then had to clean the deposits of greasy soot that had gathered on all the shelves and surfaces in the hall. But I have never enjoyed a bath so much! I'm going to take another one tonight, full of the smelliest lotions I can find.
