Shortly after my post of yesterday, we discovered that there was no hot water. I checked the boiler. The timer was still running, but the rest of the electronics were dead. I unscrewed the control panel, fished inside it, took out the 2A fuse and replaced it with another one. No change. The boiler is dead and we have no heating, no hot water and the prospect of a huge bill with which to start the New Year.

Naturally my first thought was to whinge about my misfortune on my blog. That’s when I discovered the battery in the MacBook Pro was plummeting to 0% and the power lead had stopped working. The screen faded and died before I could finish the boiler illustration to your left. So, one trip to the Apple reseller later, here I am, waiting for my brother to appear and drive us all to Lincolnshire. It might be flat, but at least we’ll be staying somewhere warm and in a part of the country where no-one would dream of paying almost £60 for a jumped up kettle lead to stick in their laptop.