Storyteller's World

This looks like one of those trivial domestic drama /crises which should be resolved in moments (or at worst, days) but which looks like becoming an epic almost as long as and much more tedious than the Kalevala. (With apologies to Finns, who may find the Kalevala thrillingly gripping; but I think it is almost defining of an epic that it's one of those bores we all think we know, because we're half-familiar with so many of the episodes, but we can hardly bear to listen to or read. I've struggled with the Mahabharata, the Mabinogion, Beowulf, who knows what, and in the end I conclude most of us are only able to tolerate the nearest epic. As who should shrug their shoulders apologetically and say, 'I know it's an epic; but it's our epic.')

It is a beautiful thing, O Muse, to move into a brand new home, that we own, with a fitted kitchen. Especially after having lived in rented flats and clergy houses for thirty years of married life. A beautiful and heart-warming thing, to know that we have this place as an investment, a retirement home in waiting, and a holiday home and bolt-hole in the mean time. A beautiful thing, until something goes wrong; when having a bolt-hole more than a hundred miles from where you bolt from, can be something of a disadvantage.

For over a year - of course, just over a year - the fridge-freezer in our fitted kitchen worked perfectly. It was not overtaxed by being kept full of stuff, and having its door opened and closed several hundred times a day. I should have said its existence and work-load were pretty much what any fridge-freezer would have been happy to get away with. It was working fine when we were here for our summer holiday in August.

But when we returned a fortnight later for a couple of days over the August Bank Holiday, it had died. Tepid milk and orange juice for breakfast are not appetising ingredients, let me tell you.

We looked at the documents and found that we had to have proof of purchase in order to qualify for service under the warranty. Proof of purchase is difficult, when the item came as a fixture. However, we managed to talk our way around this. Eventually, that's to say. Because the first thing you find when you dial the phone number in the owner's guide, is that the companies have changed hands, or the telephone numbers have changed, and you get recorded messages telling you to dial a different number. You then have to dial the first number again, because you weren't expecting this and didn't have pencil and paper ready, and/or in any case the recorded message tells you the number too quickly, in formats or number-groups your brain doesn't recognise ("Double five seven twenty-nine three hundred". Then you dial the new number and there's one of these push-tone menus, where none of the options are about what you want, but there isn't any 'If you want to talk to an actual person ...' at the end of the menu.

Goes without saying that no one can come out on a Bank Holiday anyway, so the next time I can arrange to be at the flat is three weeks later. So,

September 21. Engineer calls. Finds motor burned out. Replaces motor. Since it is over a year old, but still covered by 5 year parts warranty, I don't have to pay for the motor (£200+) but only (?) £75 call-out.

October 15-16. We come to flat for business meeting of the owners. Find fridge-freezer not working again. It's a weekend, so no way of getting an engineer out.

October 27. By this time it's half term - except they don't call it that in Oxfordshire any more, where they have six terms in the school year - so I'm spending a couple of days' holiday at the flat. Engineer calls. Finds motor burned out. Was afraid of this; must be a gas leak. Phones office, they decide only thing is to replace the whole thing. They say they will phone to arrange delivery. No phone call.

November 1. Back at work in Oxford. Phone call from office. "We're delivering tomorrow. Then you'll have to phone again to get an engineer to come and install it."

November 2. Fridge-freezer delivered. No way I can be there, but Joan, our friendly neighbour, lets the men in.

November 16. The earliest date I can be at the flat to let the engineer in to install new fridge-freezer. This is standing in the kitchen, six feet high, having to be danced around every time you go in and out, and felt round the back of in an excessively familiar fashion whenever you want to turn the light on or off. The engineer removes the broken fridge from its fitted niche, squeezes in the new one, which is a couple of inches taller but fortunately the same width and depth; then tells me he's a engineer, not a kitchen-fitter (haven't I heard that line before somewhere? Doesn't inspire mega-confidence.) No one at all takes old fridges away any more, so naturally he doesn't either. This leaves me with a broken fridge, six feet high, by the kitchen door, having to be danced around and felt behind etc. etc. and the modern equivalent of the Quest for the Holy Grail, viz. finding someone who does take dead fridges to their final resting place. It turns out this may be the local council, who may or may not charge a supplement to the council tax we already pay. Particularly when I tell them me and the old dutch live in the old folks' flats, yes the upstairs one, and their nice young men will have to carry the dead fridge (six feet high, etc.) down the stairs first. Maybe it would be better to put an aspidistra on it and call it a feature. Or use it as a storage cupboard.

To be continued, apparently ...