Billy on boilers

It seems that our systems cannot function properly in very cold weather.

I am relatively lucky. I don’t mean that I have lucky relatives although they are lucky enough not to have a certain brand of boiler like mine.

I am lucky in so much that the pipe is at ground level and unlike my neighbour, who is 98 and has to climb up a ladder to defrost hers, I can reach mine.

Don’t get me wrong, the company that makes my boiler makes excellent boilers, which excel in warm weather but they don’t seem to like the cold.

Mine was fitted to the highest specification so that the cups full of water, which are emitted as steam, can travel down a pipe outside to the grid.

I would love to meet those who came up with these exacting standards.

You can just imagine the conversation: “I know, why don’t we insist on something that is not needed and will freeze up as soon as we have a cold spell so that the whole nation can stand outside with kettles and chat to their neighbours. This will bring us all much closer together.”

And yes, it might if we managed to live through it. I cut off my pipe and, hey presto, my boiler works again. Despite having millions of tons of salt available, again the roads were gridlocked.

Kia Karen is a big enough car to sleep in but I wouldn’t want to live in her for days on end on the motorway.

I wonder how Ronnie Rover coped. I still miss him. He didn’t seem to mind the cold but he is a lot older now.

Kia Karen refused to start unless I jumped her first thing in the morning.

Luckily Lucy Laguna, who is a diesel, has a pair of very good jump leads, which she used to help. ‘Diesel get her going’, she said.

Ms Nomates and I let in the New Year in Edinburgh, and to feel part of the celebrations and blend in, she made me wear a kilt.

What a night to wear a dress while she was resplendent in her winter woolly trousers with thermal underwear as reinforcement against the frosty air. Any reference to where I felt the cold most will be edited out so you can use your imagination.

We do use the expression, ‘Let in the New Year’, as if it needs our permission.

It barges in and nobody can stop it. This year it came in style like a proper winter. I think I’m going soft in my old age because I used to adore playing in the snow and making slides on the ice.

All I will say is that this year, I am going to have all of my pipes lagged – and I mean all of them.

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