Oh no…it’s tiny!

So the bathroom is coming on gradually. The new wall is up, plastered and tiled. We are ready to get the plumber in to fit the new radiator – yippee! At this point I should mention that we picked the radiator out of a catalogue as we had a particular style in mind (well, I did anyway and hubby went along with it) and they didn’t have one in stock in the shop. So, it was ordered and delivered with the rest of the bathroom (which is sitting in the study behind me as I type) – this is where it has been for the last month! Anyway, the radiator came in a great big box which we opened at one end, checked the fixing pack was inside (i.e. make sure contents were complete) and then promptly taped shut again as the cats had decided that it was nothing more than a large cardboard play tunnel and were desperate to get inside.

Actually, on a bit of an aside, what is it about cats that they feel compelled to sit in cardboard boxes? Bugalugs is, at this moment, sat inside a box (which incidentally has no bottom) looking very smug and blinking up at me^*1. Why? He was in it within 20 seconds of me dropping it on the floor and will only leave it if I manage to find another box for him to try out.

Anyway, back to the radiator – we were ready for the plumber to fit it so unpacked it from its enormous box, removed all the polystyrene packing which was needed to fill such a big box and took it upstairs to the bathroom. It was at this point that we noticed that we have 9ft ceilings - well in fact we did know this before, but there’s nothing like a too-small radiator to show these things up! It looked tiny in the room – weedy I think was the expression hubby used. Worse than that – one of the legs was bent! So, that was it, I had to get on the phone and sit in an automated system listening to canned music for 20 minutes^*2. Finally I got through to someone who told me that the earliest they could get a replacement to me would be at least a month as they had none in stock but if I wanted I could take it back to the shop and see if I could swap it for another model. Result!

So, that was what we did – took it back and found something else. The something else which was what hubby had fancied in the very beginning so it's alls well that ends well!

^*1 All cat owners will know exactly what I mean by this blinking business…
^*2 This is my personal hate, hate, hate! If they are busy, why don’t we get an engaged signal. If they are not there why don’t they just not answer? I hate having to pay to listen to their choice of, muzak and press buttons which never get me anywhere. I have taken to doing nothing when they say “if you have a touch tone phone press the star key now”. Normally it at least gets you through to a person …who will then put you on hold and make you listen to their choice of muzak….grrrrr!!! Do you sense how much I hate these things yet?