Game set and...

Been an interesting old day... headed off into work only to get a phone call from the daughter an hour later. After letting the dog out (and trying to stop the cat from escaping too) she realised that she had locked herself out of the house. Shoeless, she struggled round to the neighbours and asked if she could phone me. No problem.

Problems really began when it got to my phone. First the number came up as blocked, so I was going to ignore it, then I decided that as they left voicemail, I would listen. I tried to phone back but there was no answer from the house or from the daughter's mobile (not surprisingly as the cats haven't been trained to this particular task as yet - and the dog is just, well, too dumb). Then I tried to return a call because I could hear kids in the background and I assumed that she had gone somewhere to phone. Ever tried calling a blocked number back? Well that just doesn't work.

Next plan was to phone the school, the childminder, the shop... but I reckoned the chance of her still being there was slim, so decided to head home. Copied some work onto a USB and after a couple of girls in the office offered to run me home (thanks guys), I headed for the door. Arrived home to find said daughter thankfully fully clothed apart from the shoes, but frozen stiff in the hallway behind the storm door. The cats on the other hand were having a field time.

All sorted out and settled down to get some work done. Then the man came in and pointed out the heating wasn't on. Had noticed it was getting cold but had just put it down to the wind. Went up into the loft clutching a box of matches in case the pilot light had blown out. Stared at it for a few minutes and couldn't find anyway of lighting the pilot. In disbelief I went to find a manual. Surely I wasn't going to have to call out a plumber to light a pilot??? Duh! It's a new boiler. Duh! You only have to press a reset button. Duh!

Fixed and the house is almost warm again, but the matches will stay beside the logs for the rest of the night just in case.