Terry Prone: Despite battling conditions in a Martello tower, the cold snap won
Being without central heating oil in advance of the recent cold weather proved challenging to our columnist
Originally published in the Irish Examiner.
Being frozen rigid despite wearing three jumpers is what you might expect during the cold snap.
The problem was when that condition established itself three days in advance of that snap.
I looked at the wall behind which the boiler lives, that wall housing a chimney thing out of which steam pours when the heating is on. No steam.
“I thought I asked you to check the oil?” I wrote in a text to Bryan, who takes care of stuff like that for me.
Despite the accusatory tone, which in fairness wasn’t that easy to detect in a text, he came back promptly and positively.
“You did,” he confirmed. “And I did.”
“You did?” I snarked, feeling like a straight man in a bad comedy act.
“I did and it needed changing, so I took the car to the garage and got fresh oil into it,” he replied.
You can see why he’s my hero. You can also see why I had a brief desire to text him in capital letters that he SHOULD HAVE BEEN INSPIRED THAT WHEN I TALK OIL, I MEAN CENTRAL HEATING OIL.
Although, to be honest, the car oil had been there so long, it definitely needed changing.
But honesty was not going to solve the problem of my blue fingernails and visible breaths indoors.
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