and with it comes power

As only six people turned up to the work photo club AGM it would have seemed rude to not offer to be a member. I would have done so last year but didn't like the mildly officious feel to the meeting and suspected it might have taken some of the fun out of it. We have an acting chairman until he can persuade someone else that they want to be the chairman properly and a secretary in the form of the bloke who didn't turn up to the meeting but had said he was happy to serve. The committee smells a little bit more potentially involving this year, and I shall be interested to see how I can help.

My slight increased buoyancy in the evening was certainly helped by a successful day sitting in waiting for two people to arrive. The first (the delivery of a flat-packed sofa) happened by about elevenish whilst the second (a bloke from the firm who installed the central heating two years ago visiting to hopefully replace the knackered valve in the bathroom) arrived shortly before his stated latest expected arrival-time of noonish. He didn't replace the valve but at least got it working, though I find it incredibly hard to believe that a heating engineer would not travel with basic equipment like a standard-sized lockshield valve in his van, if not the bag of tools he brought to the door.

The sofa arrived on a pallet and was dumped just outside the front door by the delivery driver. In an ideal world it would have been Clingfilmed securely enough to be able to tip it on its side and roll it into the stairwell without dismantling it but it was already starting to unravel a bit even after the short journey across the road. A two-stage unpacking process was required to first shift it into the stair and away from passing thieving hands (and possibly the wind and rain) with the second stage to shift it from the stairwell into the flat. Despite being flat-packed it was by no means compact, though the distinct advantage of the delivery method was that it would fit through the door from the hall into the room in which the sofa must sit without having to remove the door, doorjamb and probably the radiator right next to the door which we've only recently reattached. Even unconstructed it looked larger than the existing sofa, especially when piled up beside it and atop it. One way in which our flat could never be described is as "able to comfortably contain two large two-seater sofas" but the construction of the new one and dismantlement (probably forcible and fatal) of the old one (in order to get it out of the door we know it came through but through which it now seems to big to fit back through) should be able to be completed tomorrow.