About a month ago my gas boiler cut out and I had no heating or hot water. I have a maintenance agreement with the gas company and they said they said they would sent an engineer to attend to it.
When the door bell rang a few hours later, I found two people in gas company overalls on my door step. The one in front carrying a tool box was a young lady about 25 years old. She was about 5ft 5ins tall and looked quite solidly built. She was very attractive in a tomboyish sort of way with a lovely smile. She introduced herself in a very cheerful manner, saying she was the gas engineer. She explained that her colleague was an apprentice, learning the trade. He was a shy young lad about 21 years old and 5ft 11ins tall with a slim build.
The engineer checked my system out and told me that the pump had seized up and said she would replace it. She gave a wrench to the apprentice and asked him remove the old pump whilst she got a new one out of their van. She was gone a few minutes and I noticed he was struggling to undo the nuts between the pump and the pipework.
When she came back in she asked him how he was doing. He said the nuts were very tight and wouldn't move. She explained they had probably become a bit rusty and corroded over the years. The apprentice carried on struggling to release the nuts and became hot and flustered. I was just about to offer to have a go when the engineer told him to have a rest and she would take over. She took off her jacket and was wearing a short sleeved shirt. I noticed she had very strong looking forearms. She took the wrench and within seconds the first nut was loosened. The other one took a bit longer but was soon undone.
The young apprentice's face was bright red, probably from the embarrassment he felt as much as the effort he put in. Whilst she finished the job the engineer tried to salvage his pride by saying there was a technique in releasing tight fittings which comes with experience. I don't think he was listening. I'm sure he was embarrassed that she had shown herself to be much stronger than him in front of me.
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