Radiators Have Feelings Too

For the first month of living in my new apartment, I had no gas. By this, I literally mean I had no gas. This meant no cooking and, more importantly, no heating! In fact, I got so used to the cold, that for once I wasn’t the person complaining when the weather took a bad turn. Frost, mist, icicles; none elicited any reaction from me. While others were chattering in their thermal undies, I was humming a merry tune and prancing about the flowers in my bikini. It got so bad that people who visited me kept their coats on the whole time. In fact, it got to the point where I could judge what the days weather would be like from the density of the cloud my breath would form before my face each morning as I awoke.

Needless to say, it was a cold month.

The problem with the cooking wasn’t so hard to live with. I have a microwave, and luckily that doesn’t run on gas. It might be the most unhealthy, cancerous-causing, way to cook food, but it didn’t run on gas. Therefore, I single-handedly kept the Tesco vegetarian ready-made meal market afloat. Veggie curry, rice, veggie curry, rice, veggie potato curry, rice…it wasn’t a particularly varied diet, but as I’ve stated, it didn’t require gas.

Needless to say, I lost weight.

In fact, I lost so much weight that I now need a new wardrobe. My parents of course think this was all planned. Although I would like to claim to have the intelligence necessary to hatch such a well-thought out, original method of eliciting money for a new wardrobe, I fear I must own up and say, no, alas, it didn’t quite work out like that. Simply, I had no gas. And Tesco had no good microwavable food.

A couple of weeks ago, my gas got connected. I really must commend the Irish Gas Board for their speedy service. It only took them 4 weeks. They beat Eircom; from whom I am still expecting the broadband package I ordered 6 weeks ago.

Anyhoo, the gas got connected, and I got heating.

It’s actually quite amazing how easy it is to forget what some things are like. I honestly had begun to believe that everyone spent the first 10 minutes in bed each night, their duvet swathed about themselves like a cocoon, shivering to get warm. I’ll be upfront with you. For the first few nights I missed it. Going to bed had become less of an adventure, if you will. I found myself just lying there thinking ‘so…I just go straight to sleep?’ The sudden presence of heat in the house was quite exciting. I spent many hours next to my new best friends the radiators. Unfortunately, none of the radiators were close enough to the beds, or the chairs. None, that is, except for the one in the bathroom. Whoever designed my box of a bathroom was smart. The radiator is right next to the toilet. That could be due to the lack of space. Nevertheless, the bathroom became my favourite place. More specifically, the toilet became my favourite seat. When heating was still a novelty I would drink bucketfuls of water, just so that I could spend as much time as possible next to Bert. That’s the radiator by the way. When you spend so much time with something, it feels almost rude not to give it a name. I seriously considered moving a desk in there. If the bathroom had been a bit bigger, I might have. I didn’t though. And eventually, I had to end things with Bert. We still see each other, although it’s not quite as serious. It wasn’t him, it was me.