In the morning with the turkey safely in the oven we all gathered in the lounge to watch the children open their presents. Sam holds the record for 'speed opening' but he seemed very pleased with his presents which included a telescope and a lamp in the style of a blue light from a police car. Laura was pretty speedy in the opening stakes too, her presents included clothes, perfume and an external hard drive for her computer. Emily's presents had a mixed theme, several useful things for university including a special textbook that was top of her Christmas list, she also had perfume, bags and various fun things. The children also had a Nintendo Wii as a joint present which has proved extremely popular. You already know about the contents of Robbie's stocking, and I had a bottle of my favourite perfume from Robbie and a lovely necklace from the children. It was a brilliant start to the day.
The day went down hill rapidly after that. Robbie decided that the shirt that he absolutely had to wear needed ironing, so I was installed in the kitchen with the ironing board while Robbie went to have a shave and shower. We had taken the decision to replace the fridge freezer because we had been worried that the old one may let us down over Christmas, so the shiny new Bosch fridge freezer that had only arrived the previous Thursday was now installed in place of the temperamental hotpoint. It looked really smart and I liked it because it wasn't quite as tall as the old one, so it was easier to reach the things in the fridge. I had finished one shirt and was part way through the Boxing Day shirt when without warning there was a crackle and the fridge socket burst into flames! The kitchen fire blanket was hanging close to the cooker and I grabbed it and beat the now fierce fire frantically with it. I yelled for Robbie who arrived just in time to see me put out the fire, I was so shaken that I didn't even moan about him not being dressed. The side of the fridge was burned, the sockets were charcoal, the wall tiles were cracked and the paper had been burned off the wall, the kitchen roll holder was burned and black and my CD player (which had been on top of the fridge) was a write off. So, it looked as if Christmas was cancelled!
The fridge freezer and its contents were lost, but we managed to get on with Christmas regardless. Thankfully I have home emergency insurance and I was able to get an electrician to come and make the wiring safe. He checked and said that the fault had been caused by faulty wiring in the fridge freezer's sealed plug, it was a relief to know it wasn't our wiring! He made everything safe, but the smell of burn still lingers and the shock really upset me. I can't help thinking what could have happened if we were in bed or if we had been out! The one good thing was that our smoke detectors worked perfectly!
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