Between the Hail Showers

From the heights of 5.4C though the night today has dropped as low as 1.9C and reached 2.7C this afternoon. A few sleet/hail showers though the morning then hail showers, some heavy, through the afternoon. Wind NW/WNW to 30 mph with gusts to 51 mph (but mostly around the 40 mph mark).

Maeve the Deerhound decided she would like to go out at 5am. Early start. When we got back I decided to go back to bed. No lie in though. When Apothecary7 got up at 7am she discovered that we had no heating or hot water. Groan. The house was cold.

The gas central heating boiler was showing a warning code. The manual, which I had downloaded from the manufacturers website a few months ago so I could re program the timer, said that the problem was low pressure. The pressure gauge confirmed that. I tried the trouble shooting method to restore pressure ... no luck. Meanwhile we switched on an electric oil filled radiator in the living room so Apothecary7 and Maeve could have some heat and Apothecary7 could at least sit and have breakfast before heading off to work.

I called Scottish Gas to report the breakdown under our contract. It was arranged for someone to come out this afternoon. Although inconvenient you might think all very routine. No. At around 9.30am I got a call from Scottish Gas to say they don't cover the area where we are and that we should have been told that when we moved house and asked to change address on the contract. We will be due a full refund. I felt very let down of course and unprepared to deal with the breakdown but nothing to be done but try to find a local central heating engineer.

We don't have a local phonebook for some odd reason so some Googling produced the names and numbers of two companies. One in town whose office I have passed on my walks and one in Machrihanish. I phoned the one in town and checked that they did boiler repair and were familiar with the make of boiler we have then explained the problem. The lady said she would "have a word with the boys". Much to my delight two of "the boys" came about 11am. They had a look. It turns out that I had been using the correct troubleshooting method but just not running the re pressuring method for long enough.

The boiler was soon running again. Apparently the pressure can fall over time and now and again this re pressurising has to be done. The manual didn't give any idea how long to run the method before the pressure gauge would move and show that it was working so in the end it was actually good to have talked to an engineer about it and I suppose our refund from Scottish Gas will pay for the engineer coming. I will check if they offer a servicing and breakdown contract. We set the system to run until the end of the next timer slot and it wasn't too long before the house was starting to return to normal from the rather Baltic temperatures we had reached especially in the hall. I thanked the "boys" for coming along so promptly and they said they always try to be as quick as they can especially in this sort of weather (we had a chat about the weather ... as you do). They were just as happy as I was that they didn't have to get the tools out.

Maeve did come to see the engineers but was happier in the living room with the oil filled radiator and her fleece blanket which I had put over her. There was a time when she would have pushed the blanket off as soon as it was offered, but she seems to appreciate it nowadays on the odd occasion it is colder in the house or she has been a walk in the cold.

Maeve and I went for a walk after lunch and between the hail showers. Deacon Blue (The Believers) on the Clip. That was the plan anyway. We got caught in a fairly long  shower so I was very glad I had got Maeve's posh blue coat from the boot of the car on the way out. It is waterproof and warm so she was quite happy. We went round past Aquilibrium and when the hail came on we took shelter at the bus station for a few minutes then wandered along past the harbour to the ferry terminal hoping it would get better. No luck but there we could shelter next to the ferry terminal passenger entrance. I was hoping the shower would pass and we could walk along the park but although the sky got lighter the hail kept coming.

Ayress has arrived and is at the new quay waiting to be loaded with the huge pile of wood that has been building up there lorry load after lorry load. I grabbed a few quick photos as we went back along to the harbour, then we went over by the cross, up Main Street, and came home along Longrow. Not long after we got in the hail (or probably more likely to have been snow for a while) got heavier and the roofs and the roads all got a good covering. The hills round town are still showing green more than white, and the roads have turned slushy.

Afternoon music ... BBC Radio Scotland.
There might be some afternoon telly to follow soon so I can sit in the living room with Maeve.

DMC-LX7 f/2.8 1/200 sec. ISO-80 16mm (35mm focal length 80mm)