Stresses and strifes!

Well, apologies for being non-existant lately. I get these periods of inactivity sometimes which I put down to severe non-motivation driven by certain distractions that get thrown at me. Our latest 'distraction' is the fact that we have had no central heating since Monday last week. Some of you out there in colder climes may say ' boo hoo' so what. I can tell you that you miss it when you ain't got it! And nothing is simple with us. When something goes wrong in this house, we feel sometimes that there is a higher power, and boy does he have a grudge against us! We have been forced to go on the British Gas contract to solve our heating problem, and this morning will be our 4th visit from one of their engineers since last Friday. Before we went with them we got a local guy called Wilson (the only one who picked the phone out of many listed in the Yellow Pages) whose ethics and practices were definately questionable. He made appointments which suited him (3 o'clock every time) which he turned up when we didn't expect him, and the last appointment we agreed with him was 4 o'clock on Thursday, after we come back from picking the boys from school. In fact Simon was home with a chest infection, and when did he turn up? 3.30!! He was effing away to his mobile. When he came to our house he really creeped me out. Always criticsing some little thing. He even told me off for turning the hot water tap too strong!! We shouldn't do this, shouldn't do that. Fuck off, this is our house! I phoned him up and he said he couldn't make it till the following day. Guess when. Yep, 3 o'clock! Handy, I think, as it was probably on his way home. In fact he was home when I rang him. This guy said to me that he could fix any problem within an hour, and that's why the next hour was free. Well, he didn't say that it would probably take about 10 visits to fix the problem! We dumped him, waster!
So, it's British Gas' problem now. Should have been fixed Monday, but it broke down half an hour after the engineer left. Got another British Gas engineer in later that day. Come back with a part tomorrow. Another cold night in prospect. He came early next morning, guess what. The new circuit board was faulty (he hoped). Comeback tomorrow. In case you are losing track it's now yesterday! Then he didn't show up. Reason? He didn't have all the parts delivered to him. All parts, I said? Yes, he was to replace 4 parts not just the PCB (the board). One of them didn't arrive for him, so he didn't. He'll come tomorrow. TODAY! So with all this going on, it's hard to concentate. Oh, and my tablets weren't ready at the chemist because the medical practice had not signed my prescription. Do they want me get better?! So as a result I ran out of them last Friday and didn't get any till Tuesday. I put the repeat prescription in the chemist the week before! These tablets leave my system after only 2 days, so from Sunday onwards
I am back to square one. These are my anti-stress tablets, so...!
Oh, I have an important exam tomorrow afternoon, which could decide whether I get a degree or not. Least of my worries, eh!
I have no idea how it's going to go tomorrow. I would feel better if I could mentally focus on it but it's just not been possible with all that's been going on. I do know that when I am in exams I do get the job done and I seem to get it together. I can waffle about Psychology so maybe I will hit the right notes. I do know this though. I will not give up on it. I have invested too much time, money, and miserable Summer Schools to come this far and fail. If I pass this it will go down as one of my best achievements.
When this is over tomorrow, I will head on straight to pursuing more pleasurable pursuits. Back on the family history trail, drafting an article on my Cwm Celyn connections, and most exciting (well it is to me!) a visit to Caernarvon and the archives. Me and my assistant (Tracy!) will head off hopefully next week to try and nail this connection with Bishop William Morgan once and for all. If it's not true, then so be it, but I'm hopeful. I have recently been delving into Tracy's Suffolk family and have come up with some more surname connections, and one find in particular could turn out to be a fantastic one, with a potential GGGG grandmother with the name Pretty going back to the 16th century. I will be updating my web site more regularly as hopefully I will have more to put in.
A couple of beers tomorrow night I think.