An issue of gas

These ranting statues are in Gozo. They are in a group of four arranged in a line along a side wall as though the parishioners couldn't find anywhere to put them when they were renovating some part of the church. I came across them on one of my rambles out of Xlendi.

Today I want to have a bit of a rant about the gas. The last two days have been cold. I put on more jumpers but still needed to use the mobile fire that takes small cylinders of gas. The gas fires are sold in hardware or furniture shops and are often advertised at reduced rates. In addition you have to buy a regulator, often from some other shop and then two cylinders of gas - one to change and one in use. Once you are set up with all the necessary equipment and have worked out how to put it all together, you then have to find out what day your gas delivery truck comes around and hang out on that day waiting to hear him arrive in the street below.

Lately, there has been lots of grumbling about the rising price of gas, the risks associated with having trucks roaming around narrow streets filled to capacity with cylinders of gas and the confusion arising from another competitor entering the field with different coloured bottles and a different distribution system. More alarmingly for individual consumers, there seems to have been an increase in stories about faulty cylinders being delivered to households. My neighbour has told me horrifying stories about gas explosions in the past and just a few weeks ago there was a letter in the local paper about a man whose gas cylinder caught fire. Another friend told me about her experience with a gas bottle that was overfilled and so wouldn't light her fire even though she could smell gas.

So yesterday afternoon, I have to change my gas bottle. I take off the old bottle and attach the new. There is a smell of gas, the pilot comes on but the filament won't catch. I switch off and ponder my options. I try to remember the details of my friend's experience. What did she say she did?

I have to phone the gas company. OK, I have a way forward. I phone. I am told I am third in the queue. I wait. Eventually, a pleasant woman comes on and asks how she can help. I tell my story. She tells me that the technician will call me on the phone and when he does I should follow his instructions because if he comes to the flat and finds that the problem is not with the cylinder but with the fire or the regulator I will have to pay E20. Already I feel like it is my fault because I am not a gas technician.

The gas man calls at 8.00 pm. He asks if I have another gas bottle. No, I have just finished one bottle and the new one isn't working. Do I have another gas heater? No. Do I have another regulator? No. Do I have a gas cooker? Yes! At last we are getting somewhere, but where? It seems that I have to take my new cylinder to the gas cooker, take off the regulator from that cylinder, attach the new one and see if the cooker works. Weakly, I tell him that the cylinder for the cooker is on the roof so I will have to carry the new, full cylinder up two flights of stairs, work out how to make the switch, come back downstairs to try the cooker and then go back up again to change it all over if it doesn't work. I'm certainly not going to do all that in the middle of the night.

"But madame," he says, "I'm just trying to save you E20."

"Maybe I'll try it in the morning," I mumble, feeling vaguely that already I have lost the battle.

This morning after breakfast, I consider the problem and decide to have a go. I struggle up onto the roof with the cylinder and put it down next to the cooker cylinder. I contemplate the regulator which is different from the one on the heater. I have no idea how it switches on and off or how you remove it. I decide I am late for an appointment and hurry out to get the newspapers. On the way, I try phoning the company but there is another queue.

When I get back, I feel strong enough to phone the company again and point out how ridiculous this situation is. This time I am prepared for the queue and start reading the papers. When the same young woman answers I explain that there is a safety issue involved here, that it is difficult for me to lug gas cylinders around and downright dangerous to be messing around with something that I don't understand.

"But madame, he was just trying to save you E20."

By this time I have moved into my icy logic phase. I suggest that it looks like gas is becoming far too risky, that if we find that it is not the cylinder at fault but the heater or the regulator I will have to make the decision to stop using gas all together and he can take back the full cylinder, the empty cylinder, the regulator and the heater in lieu of payment. The woman says he will call me.

I wait at home for a few hours and then have to go out to teach my class. When I get back I phone again to make sure he hasn't tried to call when I was out. No, she will call him again and remind him.

Round about 5.00pm he calls again. This time he suggests that the regulator is incompatible with the gas bottle, that instead of the blue regulator, I need a green one.

"How come it worked before?"

"They wear out"

This time I am asked to go out to Birzebugga to get a new regulator, try that and if the gas bottle still doesn't work he will come out and it will cost me nothing.

"By then it will be summer and I won't need the gas heater."

I know that we are going round in circles, that I should not be talking to the technician about company policy on health and safety, that it is not logical to have a technician whose job is to look for one fault only and anything down the line must be self-diagnosed, that I am not going to resolve the issue before this cold snap ends.

So now I'm writing this with layers of jumpers plus my blanket that I've made into a poncho, a useless, full bottle of gas sitting on the roof, an empty bottle that I am reluctant to refill in case I get another dud, a regulator that is incompatible and a heater that is just an empty shell. I really wish I could find an alternative heating system that won't bankrupt me, but I also feel that there is a more general issue here that should be dealt with. The problem is finding where to start. Perhaps if I find the person that both the woman on the phone and the technician on the phone connect with...