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It's Christmas morning and I was woken up by Topie in time to watch An Audience with Parkinson (started at 6:36 a.m.).
Our greatest Christmas present, done on Christmas Eve, was the gift of a flushing toilet. The toilet, which had been leaking from the cistern on and off, went out on Sunday -- the water was flowing through into the bowl so it couldn't be flushed. Since it had been previously repaired a couple of months back via a particular plumber via The Grey Army, we called on Monday morning asking for it to be fixed and what was the situation -- was the work covered?
We went back and forth for four days because the particular tradie wasn't answering his phone, which is unusual for the Grey Army tradies but not for this guy -- in fact we'd asked once for them to send out someone else and someone in the office called him one last time. We finally had a different plumber call on Thursday morning -- this guy phoned within five minutes of us calling the Grey Army and came out on Christmas Eve morning. (He fixed it within five minutes and said the seal from the cistern hadn't been repaired properly in the first place. Figures.) We found ourselves standing there just listening to the flush and revelling in it -- it amazes you just how much you rely on the amenities of modern life until you haven't got them any more.
His face lit up when we handed him a bottle of wine -- I think he thought we'd been joking when we said 'come out and there's a bottle of wine in it for you'. I noticed that particularly this year -- we normally give out bottles of wine, chocolates and little gifts to the various doctors/mechanics/hairdressers/etc. that we go to throughout the year, but everyone seemed utterly surprised and delighted that they'd had pressies this year.
It's been a funny thing this year with Christmas, it's like it snuck up on everyone -- I was at a Christmas party last week and everyone said how they were all 'shit, Christmas is next week' and it didn't feel like it in the least. I stayed away from the shopping centres this year, but when I drove past Southland Wednesday to drop off the pressie for the dentist, I actually noticed a parking space or two...
A merry Christmas to you all.
Our greatest Christmas present, done on Christmas Eve, was the gift of a flushing toilet. The toilet, which had been leaking from the cistern on and off, went out on Sunday -- the water was flowing through into the bowl so it couldn't be flushed. Since it had been previously repaired a couple of months back via a particular plumber via The Grey Army, we called on Monday morning asking for it to be fixed and what was the situation -- was the work covered?
We went back and forth for four days because the particular tradie wasn't answering his phone, which is unusual for the Grey Army tradies but not for this guy -- in fact we'd asked once for them to send out someone else and someone in the office called him one last time. We finally had a different plumber call on Thursday morning -- this guy phoned within five minutes of us calling the Grey Army and came out on Christmas Eve morning. (He fixed it within five minutes and said the seal from the cistern hadn't been repaired properly in the first place. Figures.) We found ourselves standing there just listening to the flush and revelling in it -- it amazes you just how much you rely on the amenities of modern life until you haven't got them any more.
His face lit up when we handed him a bottle of wine -- I think he thought we'd been joking when we said 'come out and there's a bottle of wine in it for you'. I noticed that particularly this year -- we normally give out bottles of wine, chocolates and little gifts to the various doctors/mechanics/hairdressers/etc. that we go to throughout the year, but everyone seemed utterly surprised and delighted that they'd had pressies this year.
It's been a funny thing this year with Christmas, it's like it snuck up on everyone -- I was at a Christmas party last week and everyone said how they were all 'shit, Christmas is next week' and it didn't feel like it in the least. I stayed away from the shopping centres this year, but when I drove past Southland Wednesday to drop off the pressie for the dentist, I actually noticed a parking space or two...
A merry Christmas to you all.
