Keep Cool!

Right now, keeping cool is really easy for me - we have no heating and no hot water.

One day last week, I came home from work to find my flat a bit chilly. The radiators were luke warm, though, and so at first I did not think anything was amiss. When I am out all day, of course I do not have the heating blast away, but keep it at a low level.
But when I was washing my hands, no hot water came from the tap (I HATE washing my hands in cold water), and so I knew something was wrong.

There are three flats in my house, mine being the one in the middle. The downstairs flat has its own boiler in the cellar, while mine and the top floor flat are connected to a second boiler up in the attic.

I could hear my upstairs neighbour already rummaging about in the attic and called up to him. He told me that the boiler had turned itself off a few hours ago and he had been trying to reactivate it a few times. As he was not successful, he rang a friend of his who happens to be an expert for gas boilers. The kind man came to our house at 8:30 pm - not his usual working hours - and managed indeed to temporarily fix the boiler. But he warned us that it could happen again anytime, and we should start thinking about a new boiler, as repairing it would probably not be worth it for such an old one as ours.

Well, we were happy for the moment, having hot water and heating again - until yesterday morning. About five minutes before I wanted to have a shower, I noticed the radiators were cold again. Just like last time, I could hear my neighbour upstairs, and decided to wait a little and see whether he'd be able to fix it. He did, and I could have my hot shower as usual.

Then after work, it was the same all over again: a chilly flat and no hot water when I washed my hands. This time, my neighbour said he had called the company who originally installed our boiler. One of them came to have a look right away and explicitly told him NOT to try again to fix the boiler himself. Instead, he promised to order the necessary parts immediately and would come in tomorrow (i.e. today) in the afternoon to repair it. (All these conversations were a bit difficult, as my neighbour's German is not exactly fluent, and my Turkish is limited to a handful of words.)

Now we hope that the parts will arrive there today, so that our boiler can be fixed this afternoon.

It is not yet too cold in my flat - the downstairs flat is giving off some warm to me, and I still have almost 20 Celsius in my rooms. But I do not want to go to work without a hot shower, and have arranged to go to my parents' this morning. I'll pack my work clothes and my cosmetics bag, and it will be no problem - my Mum is going to the kindergarten for her weekly reading anyway, so she is up early today and does not have to adapt uncomfortably to my schedule.
But I hate the idea of getting dressed and leaving the house un-showered! I know this is silly, and there are millions of people who never have the luxury of a hot shower, but it is all about what we are used to, isn't it?

If the boiler can not be fixed today, I will have to think about asking my sister or my parents for a few days of staying with either of them.