First up, some good news - I'm officially not a criminal! I'm in the… - John C. Kirk

08:18 pm

First up, some good news - I'm officially not a criminal! I'm in the process of joining St John's Ambulance as a brigade member (rather than just loitering around), and I had my induction day back in December, but they then needed to do some background checks before they could proceed. I got a couple of my friends to provide references, but the main thing was that they needed to go to the CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) to make sure that I haven't got any previous convictions. That's particularly relevant since I may be working with children. Anyway, the report came back on Monday, so now I just need to wait for SJA to do their admin stuff. Once that's done, I'll get a uniform, be able to go on duty properly (rather than just as an observer), and do my FAW (First Aid at Work) course.

Some less good news is that my heating packed in on Wednesday. I still have hot water through the taps and shower, but not in the radiators. This leads to another good news/bad news scenario...
Good news: The boiler comes with a 1 year guarantee from the manufacturer.
Bad news: I neglected to fill in the registration card within 30 days (since I didn't have a gas supply at that point, I left all the manuals etc. for later).
Good news: The installers have their own 1 year guarantee.
Bad news: They don't seem to be in a major rush to come round.
Anyway, the upshot is that I'll phone them tomorrow morning, and they'll try to talk me through the repair process. If that doesn't work, they'll arrange to send someone out. In the meantime, my fireplace is turning out to be quite handy, since it doesn't rely on gas/electricity. The only snag is that it takes me about an hour to get it lit properly, but hopefully that will improve with practice.

Meanwhile, I went off to see "Pirates of Penzance" last night, which was quite fun. I had trouble understanding some of the words in the songs, but I got the basic gist of it, and the other people I was with were able to fill in the blanks for me. I'm now watching "Joey" (i.e. the "Friends" spinoff), which seems pretty good - it's made me laugh, so that's enough for me.