I can’t phone or text or whatsapp. I want to but I can’t. If it’s the wrong time, I won’t be being helpful.

So I sit here, taking a short respite from a difficult 3-day client meeting, waiting to hear something and knowing that, if I don’t hear something, I’ve probably got all this to face when I arrive home.

Obviously, on the day of the move to our new home, not everything was done, as I may have mentioned.

For example, we had no kitchen. We had no sofas or dining room chairs. We had no hot water.

Before the kitchen could be installed, a special pipe had to be run along the wall from the gas meter to the place for the cooker (We were taking my existing cooker.) This work was expensive but, being gas, it has to be done right. Plus we needed some vents from the kitchen and some other stuff to make it all safe and certified.

They spent 2 days doing the work and it looked good and neat and tidy.

The kitchen was coming today. They were going to fit it. It’s a beautiful kitchen.

And the gas man was coming today to turn on the gas.

So, by the end of today, we shall have hot water, a fitted kitchen and we can start to empty the “kitchen” boxes.

More importantly, we can take showers, make coffee and tea and, if we want, cook meals.

Except, it seems, it’s all gone horribly wrong. But I don’t know why.

I sent a message to say that I had rung F’s dad to wish him a happy birthday.

“Today is not the day,” came the reply. Now I was sure I was right but maybe I had misunderstood. I replied asking if I had got the wrong day.

“No is no day for me
“The guy from the gas came and left
“so now I’m screaming with all the people”

Hmm. My understanding of this was that the gasman came but did not turn on the supply because something was wrong with the (very expensive) installation and that F was now quite busy, shouting down the phone at the people who did the installation.

It’s a guess. I text, “the gas is on or not?”

“no
“no
“nono
“no
“no”

So, i guess that would be a “no” then?

I reply, “Oh, OK.” I mean, what else could I say? It would serve absolutely no purpose in getting angry and would only stress him out more. I wish I could go home but I have clients, so I can’t. Anyway, it would be like walking on eggshells if I did and, possibly, serve no useful purpose other than allow him to shout at me (which, actually, could have purpose in that he would shout less at the people we need to help to fix this and, therefore, more likely to get them to help us fix the problem.)

I get one more text.

“Cazzo”

Indeed.