So this is what happens if you're really lucky.
You have the gas connected to your old house for the first time in its 94-year history. That's the digging up of the footpath to get the gas pipe from the street to your house. Then you have a heap of copper piping strapped to the side of your house, connecting the meter box to your stove and hot water service.
Then the gasfitter submits some vitally important paperwork to the gas regulator. Who decides your job needs to be audited and promptly switches the gas supply off.
You, of course don't notice this until 7.30pm on the Saturday of a long weekend.
Several increasingly miffed phone calls ensue to the gas regulator, the gas inspection people and the gas fitter. Nothing happens. You manage to cobble together dinner, and you go to bed grubby from a day's scrubbing and moving.
The next day, a gas inspector turns up apropos of nothing. He looks vaguely at your gas meter box, then announces he can do nothing as he doesn't have the paperwork. You ask why he's here. That conversation goes nowhere.
Fortunately, your gasfitter is a compassionate fellow and resends the paperwork to the gas regulator. Then the gas inspector reappears and approves your gasfitter's work. But he doesn't turn the gas on. That's not his job. That's the gasfitter's job. The gasfitter can't come, he has small children to supervise and no car that day...
The practical one is furious and has several strongly worded letters half-composed. Grrrr...
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