Plumbing the Depths

It's just as well that, so far, we've been enjoying surprisingly mild temperatures this Autumn as I still have no functioning central heating system.  I know why it isn't working - the pump isn't functioning and the hot water tank's coil is leaking - but getting someone to fix it has become a saga.  The plumber who originally looked at it, after complaining about the state of the parking locally, spurning the temporary permit I had paid the council for, at his behest, made the most cursory of initial visits, failed to actually run any basic tests to verify my diagnosis, left my house mumbling about sending me a quote.  At the time, I got the impression that I was never going to hear from him again, so unenthusiastic about the job that he seemed, so I started the task of finding a replacement.  As always seems to be the case when trying to engage the services of a plumber, people were either not answering their phones, not answering messages left for them when they didn't answer the phone or answering the phone, telling me someone would call me back, but then not actually calling back.  In the midst of this, over a week after his visit, I got a quote from the first plumber.  Out of politeness, if nothing else, I decided to at least consider his offer.  While it wasn't completely outrageous, he caveated it by saying that before he would agree to the job, I had to guarantee that he could park close to my house.  By this time I was getting desperate to get the heating situation sorted, so I actually started trying to sort out some parking arrangements, before thinking, 'fuck it, why am I doing this?' I've never had to do it before for any tradesman, nor have my neighbours.

A word of explanation is probably required here - my house is on a raised terrace with no parking possible directly outside or opposite.  The resident's parking starts halfway down the road.  Not that I park there.  I have a (increasingly expensive) permit for the car park opposite, as the resident's parking always seems to be full of cars belonging to people who don't actually live there, but are using their mate's visitor permit.  I didn't create this situation and it seems ridiculous to me that I should have a tradesperson effectively telling me that I can't have any work done at my property unless I somehow sort out the council's parking policies.  I'm sorry, but it really isn't my problem.  I know that it is fair distance to walk between the on-street parking or the car park, (I know, I have to walk it every time I go to get my car or bring anything large I've bought and driven home by car to my house), but no other tradesmen used by me or my neighbours ever seem to have had a problem - it isn't like some kind of trek across the African veldt requiring native bearers and elephants.  The long and the short of all this is that I've decided to decline the original guy's quote, even though it means more delays to getting my heating repaired - it seems clear to me, both from his initial attitude and all the nonsense about parking, that, for whatever reasons, he really doesn't want to do the job.  So, I'm back to ringing around plumbers.  Or I would be if I had the energy.  I would have started as soon as I rejected that quote, but I've had to spend a large part of the week sorting out some repeat prescriptions, which my GP practice had, as ever, been tardy in signing off and the pharmacy kept insisting that only one had been issued and that I'd collected it.  Which I hadn't.  Anyway, that turned into a time-consuming and energy sapping saga in its own right.  So, I've vowed to myself that I'll restart my search for a plumber next week - I've already done some research and identified some likely candidates who might actually answer their phones.  In the meantime, let's just hope that those temperatures stay mild.