I ken I’m a worrier, but fit a fraught weekend.
Up to high-doh stressin’ aboot every domestic disaster known to man which might imminently hit me.
Fires, break-ins, floods, spills, a bus crashin’ aff the road into the front of my hoosie even.
You see, my wee world went skite at lunch-time on Saturday. Finally opened the big letter I’d got from my house insurer a couple of weeks ago. Recognising the name on the front and reckoning it was my renewal quote for, as I recalled, the end of April, I let it lie, unopened.
Maybe even scour the net for a lower quote. Big mistake.
Opened it to discover my cover ran ootski at midnight that Saturday, March 30. New cover (with payment) to start Sunday, March 31.
Mummy, daddy, helpmaboab. My fingers trembled as I phoned. The message: “Our office closed at 1pm.” Reader, it was 1.07pm.
I desperately needed to get them the next day, when my cover ran oot.
Sweat hailin’, checked when they’d be open. Soddd it! Didnae open Sundays.
Losh did I regret ha’in’ that chicken and mango curry the night afore. Spik aboot nippy-bum time.
My precious hoosie would be without cover the whole of Sunday, until Monday at 9am.
Foo mony gremlins could attack me?
Foo mony gremlins could attack me during those hours? Something particularly drastic and I’d be ruined.
Visions o’ bein’ a bag lady ootside Markies. I spent the rest of the weekend afeart to even use the oven lest it suddenly burst into flames.
My mind went back to the debacle the one and only time I’ve had to use my insurance in this hoosie.
December 2005, only a pucklie months after moving in. New shower cabinet, flooring and curtains in the bathroom, as well as re-wiring and full re-decoration elsewhere.
Come Christmas, I was keen to show it off.
A pal of my quine’s stayed overnight from the 23rd and I’d a full table of eight for the 25th.
Me nervous but supremely organised. Up at the crack of dawn on December 24 to set aboot first of cooking, into the bathroom for a fast shower and … fit the?
Water a’wye, nearly up to my ankles. Ladies, don’t shed a tear aboot a rat of a man again. A flooded lavvie is truly the heartbreak from hell.
Water gushing from burst pipe under the cludgie, set a basin and started bailin’oot.
My plumber assured me it was an insurance jobbie and they’d have to allocate the firm.
On the phone for a lifetime. They’d send a gadgie to me to before 8pm.
Ye gods, far wis he commin’ fae – Lapland? Actually, Nairn. On Christmas Eve. He arrived by the time I’d de-swamped and was finally stuffing the turkey.
Fixed the burst pipe (or so I thought) and offskied back north.
Amazingly, oor Christmas Day was briliant, but on Boxing Day the fff …lippin’ flood flared again. Same pipe gushing.
Renewed hellos to the (obviously incompetent) Nanook fae Nairn.
After a lengthy stravaig through insurance conditions, I eventually got about £2,000 towards restoring the bathroom.
So you can imagine how hyper I got over the weekend knowing I was coverless. On to the phone 9.0am on the dot Monday, only to freeze at the message I got: “We’re closed for the bank holiday.”
Aaargh – not another uncovered 24 hours!
Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press and Journal and started her journalism career in 1970
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