Monday 30 November 2015

Some light in the gloom



It’s yet another miserable grey day. Everything drips with water. It seems to have been raining all weekend. The only good thing to be said is that at least the gales seem to have abated for the moment. Hopefully the gammon pie I’m in the midst of making will lift our spirits come this evening.

It’s been so bad we’ve not even been out of the house beyond going to the bins with rubbish or popping around to the laundry room with washing or for items for/from the freezer.

Today, however, I think we will be going out. That fluorescent lighting tube in the laundry room has finally gone. I ended up putting my washing on the airer, lit only by the outside light last night.

We might also get to the health food shop for some black peppercorns – they’re so much cheaper, & fresher, bought loose from the health food shop rather than the supermarket.

We may even pop along to the travel agents to see if there are any brochures with hotels in Brittany & maybe also on the Italian lakes where we’re thinking we may go in the autumn next year.

And then there’s our local village pub to visit. We’ve now established a small group of us, 7 in all, who meet there regularly on a Monday afternoon. It usually turns into a very convivial afternoon chat.

We’re certainly going to need to do something to raise our spirits in this gloomy weather. Even the sight of a magpie & a blackbird taking off when I ventured out with my potato peelings failed to raise my spirits much today.

Thursday 26 November 2015

A long cold wait



It’s such a relief. We have heat!

On Sunday evening, when I was hanging the last of my washing on the airer in the laundry room, the central heating boiler made an awful racket as it shook itself demonically. I rang the heating engineer to tell him the situation was now urgent. All I got was his answering service yet again.

An hour later the cold began to set in. The central heating had packed up. The Fox rang round other heating engineers. The earliest he could organise was for Wednesday morning. We would have to wait to then.

On Monday morning the first thing I did was try our usual man again & explained that the heating had given up & the house was getting very very cold. The temperature that morning started at -8ºC & didn’t look likely to warm up very rapidly. I was delighted when the engineer rang back around 8.30am to say he would be here later that morning. He hadn't received any of the previous messages the Fox & I had left in previous weeks. I settled down to wait.

By late morning he had arrived & started to take the boiler apart. First he discovered the pump wasn’t working. He rang his supplier. They had one in so off he went, returned & installed that. Still the boiler wouldn’t work. He continued along the system & found a switch wasn’t working. He tried his supplier. They didn’t have one in but could get one for the next day. He ordered it. As there was nothing more he could do, the engineer went off, having switched on the immersion heater so we could at least have hot water. He would ring as soon as the part arrived & be back.

We popped out to the golf club for a sit in the warmth as much as anything else. Then home for a bit of a zizz under the duvet. Next was the question of food. I contemplated cooking – at least the heat from the cooking might help warm up the house a bit – but by this time we had discovered the immersion heater wasn’t working either so there was no chance of hot water for washing up afterwards. I felt the chicken I had got out of the freezer that morning – still frozen solid, impossible to separate the thighs – that says something about how cold the house was! Also the idea of sitting, relaxed in warmth appealed so we set off down to our local village pub.   

Once home we lit the gas fire in the lounge & barely ventured out of that one room. The bed sheets were absolutely freezing as I clambered into bed. One good thing about my disability is that my knees become massively inflamed by the evening & soon it was roasty toasty in bed.

Tuesday saw me once more waiting. Linda, our home help arrived. She had to resort to boiling kettles of water to get some hot water to clean the bathroom & kitchen. She left at about noon. Shortly after the engineer rang up. The part still hadn’t arrived so he was going to do his next job which would take a while. He couldn’t get to us until nearer 4pm. We decided we should have time for a quick pop out to get the food shop done. We then lit the gas fire & waited. Eventually the phone went. He had the part but he’d found complications with his present job so would be late. We suggested he might as well come the next day.

Once more we ate out. This time we went to Ricky’s, our favourite Cantonese restaurant. I just had to have the Hot & Sour Soup to thaw me out. The Fox was content with his usual Chicken & Sweetcorn Soup. The Fox then enjoyed a Scallop & Prawn Bird’s Nest while I had Ginger & Pineapple Duck. We thoroughly enjoyed our meal.

We had another evening huddled in front of the gas fire.

Wednesday saw me up early once more. I admit though, the room was so cold I was reluctant to emerge from bed to get dressed in that cold. The engineer arrived promptly before 9am. By 11am the switch was installed. The old switch had corroded & was full of gunk. Clearly previous engineers hadn’t bothered to clean out the filters & this was the result. It didn’t entirely surprise us. We changed engineer this year as we suspected the previous one had been a bit slapdash after our problems with the boiler last year.

We left the heating on all day yesterday to ensure the house was heated through & we had plenty of water. The sheer joy of not shivering away all day. It was a real pleasure to cook a meal at home once more

Somehow it seems harder to cope with these problems. We’ve become softer with the joy of central heating & having a constantly warm home. We are very lucky to be in a position to be able to afford to run it for our comfort, & have it repaired when necessary. The Fox particularly missed not having a wash in hot water when he got up. I just missed feeling warm, except at night. When I told Linda that in my childhood, before my parents had central heating installed, we just had one coal fire in the lounge & a range in the breakfast room, and that was it,  she couldn’t believe it. A fire only went on in the bedrooms if you were sick. Ice on bedroom windows were the norm & hot water bottles were a delight. But that was normal for any house in the 1950s. Even when we lived in Arnside, until we moved here in 2000, we still only heated the lounge & had an electric heater in the bathroom for when you had a bath in winter. No we’re very grateful to be living in today’s world, where there is central heating & warmth throughout the house. At the moment we’re really relishing it & appreciating our good fortune.  




Sunday 22 November 2015

Brittany?



The sun is shining. It seems strange to actually see sunshine once more, to not hear the wind buffeting the house.

We think we’ve decided on the destination for our 2016 French holiday – Brittany. The Fox was inspired reading a biography of Edward Pellew (the model for Jack Aubrey in Patrick O’Brian’s novels set in the Napoleonic wars).

It’s not a part of France we’ve ever explored, though we have passed through it on the way from St Malo to the Loire area or to La Rochelle. Part of the attraction is the idea of going by sea & taking our own car. We could go from Poole, Portsmouth or Plymouth. Although the Fox hasn’t been able to cope with too long a drive since his stroke, we’ve decided we could extend our holiday by breaking our journey to the south of England – maybe have an overnight stop in Stoke & see family. We’ve yet to decide on details. We might yet just fly to Nantes or Brest or go by train.

So now we have an area of France we can turn our attention to looking at accommodation & deciding just which part of Brittany to stay in & explore.

It will be something good to look into as winter sets in. The temperature is now definitely more winter than autumn, so a little distraction is necessary.