The mysterious tale of the exploding gas heater

So.

In case you didn't know this, I don't have central heating at home. I have a gas heater.

In some ways, this is fabulous, because when you think about it, it's really a fireplace that you never have to put wood into.

In other ways, this is slightly less fabulous, because it means that one side of the house (being the living room, where aforementioned gas heater is located) gets nice and warm, whereas the other side (being the side where the bathroom is) gets absolutely freezing, which - let met tell you - is Not Great in winter.

It is also less fabulous when it suddenly decides to stop working.

Especially when this happens right at the time when you think, "hey, the ridiculously hot summer seems to be over, let's put the heater back on".

There really only seemed to be one thing wrong. The little pilot light that is always supposed to be on wasn't. Some careful measuring revealed that it switched itself off anywhere between "fifteen minutes" and "a week".

Now, I am a bit of a chicken. So whenever the little pilot light mysteriously went out, I made my other half finagle with the buttons to get it going again.

Unfortunately, last Tuesday, the aforementioned other half had Important Things At Work which required him to stay in a hotel somewhere. But hey, I thought, no problem, the little pilot light has been working for like almost 24 hours now, I'm sure it can handle another 24.

So of course, that evening I was crouched in front of the gas heater, finagling with buttons.

The way I understood it, you were supposed to keep one button pressed down, and rapidly press another one a few times in order to ignite it, and then it'd be fine.

I tried this three times.

And then something exploded.

I immediately decided I wasn't cold at all, and spent the rest of the evening wrapped in a blanket.

Also, most of last week...

And it's pretty hard to practice while you're trying to keep your hands warm!

So I am proud to announce I've done all the administration I had been conveniently forgetting in the last few months, plus all the arrangements I didn't really feel like doing. I've even figured out how the "transpose" button in Sibelius works, which let me tell you was quite the revelation.

Now, of course, the heater has been repaired. Apparently, it was the thermoelectric pyrometer.

So that's a new word for hang-man, you guys. You're welcome.