My husband made a phone call.

It went like this:

Ring ring, ring ring …

The person on the other end answered

My husband began …

“Oh, hello, yes, you see, ermm … my wife was cold last night when I got home and so we thought it would be a good idea to put the central heating on because while we were eating dinner together she was shaking with cold and even though the fire was on in the lounge we were a little cold at the kitchen table and so I walked across to the central heating switch and switched it on and the light came on and everything but the radiators didn’t get hot and so I walked out into the hallway because we’d finished our dinner by then and I checked the thermostat and it was definitely on 20 degrees so the heating should have fired up but it didn’t and I knew the boiler was working and we were getting hot water so my wife asked me to ring you today even though last night we had the idea to Google “what to do if your central heating doesn’t work the first time you switch it on after the summer” and we watched a couple of videos which were very good but just showed the sort of things we had already tried except of course for hitting the central heating pump with a hammer so I went upstairs to do this but it didn’t have any effect and so …”

The person on the other end spoke: “Good morning, this IS British Gas … can I help you?”

Ok, ok, ok … because it’s my blog I have full editorial control and my articles are only ever going to be my truth … but if it had been up to me, the call would have gone like this:

Ring ring, ring ring …

The person on the other end would answer

Me: “Our central heating won’t work. Can you send an Engineer to fix it please?”

It seems obvious to me. I’m a big-picture thinker and communicator. My husband, however, prefers finer detail. Much finer.

Oh well. Difference is good … isn’t it?