So, we are now expecting to spend most of February without central heating or hot water. Lovely friends and neighbours have lent us heaters, H has a fan heater she had at uni, and we bought another one this morning. We have managed to keep the house quite warm today, although there was a hiccup this morning when running too many heaters plus the tumble dryer tripped a fuse on the main socket circuit. Water is a whole different matter! Cold showers in winter are definitely bracing. At least I have now replaced the shower head so it is a cold shower rather than hosing down with cold water! M and I can handle living with cold showers. TG is also very stoically managing, even coping with washing her long hair in cold water. H was determined she would manage a hot, or at least warm, bath. It took her 15 kettles of boiling water. Of course, as we have no heating, the temperatures outside a plunging and we are in for a week where it isn't forecast to get much above freezing at any point. When I last looked out of the window it was hovering between rain and snow, and it is expected to turn to snow overnight.
We have mostly been sticking to local pavement walks of a couple of miles to avoid the mud, though we did go to the country park yesterday. As we walked back up the path towards the car we passed an elderly couple who were putting out nuts for the birds and squirrels and I was able to get close enough to this robin to get a decent photo with my phone - it can't handle taking pictures of small birds at any sort of distance. After we got back from the walk I spent the afternoon swapping between boiler issues and cooking as we had invited a couple of friends to a virtual dinner party - we dropped of their meal and then ate "together" on Zoom. By the time we had done what we could about the boiler and resigned ourselves to a chilly month we were very ready for a social distraction and a bottle of wine!
I have been busy this week knitting hats. I fell in love with a pattern that looks like winter fir trees and knitted it for myself. I cannibalised an old hat that I never wear (it was an emergency buy in Primark for £2 before going ice skating on a cold day a few years ago) for the furry pom-pom on the top. Then M's hat developed a hole so I knit him a quick replacement using some leftover chunky yarn I found. I can see from my Ravelry projects that the last hat lasted him ten years, so I can hardly begrudge him a new one! Now the hats are done I have started on a soft cotton jumper for spring/summer. I spent quite a bit of today reading and have finished The Secret Chapter, the sixth book in the Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman. These are light, fun fantasy and I have enjoyed all of them. Somehow I missed this one, which was published in 2019, so I still have the most recent book in the series left to read.
4 comments:
I love that hat! You’re really going to need it over the next few days. I’m so sorry to read about your heating situation. It made me feel better and more grateful though, as we discovered a water leak at new year. We now have no utility room ,all cupboards,sink etc demolished, with the contents all over our house. They discovered asbestos in the tiles under the Lino, so that has just been removed and sealed. We are waiting for the insurance assessor to come and tell us what they want us to do with the hole that is underneath where the leak was, and how to proceed with the drying out process. Then as we were going to bed last night Dave discovered that cold water pipe in there has started leaking!.However, we are only turning the cold water off overnight at the mo, and monitoring it today, and we do have heating!! Oh, and the washing machine died a death a fortnight ago, so we now have a lovely new one, plumbed in where our dishwasher usually lives, but sticking out in the middle of the kitchen, as we decided if we put it under the counter we’d never get it back out. We’re using the dishwasher as an extra work surface!! 2021 has started well so far😂 Stay warm xx
No heating OR hot water??? I am so sorry! 🙏🏻
I can, actually, imagine what this is like, having experienced the same sort of household issue (modernized world living; have also traveled enough to have experienced that as being the norm for many areas of the world) ... Cannot fathom having to wait that long for a repair, however!! Where we live, getting someone in and it fixed would happen same-day ... Again, modern world living and privilege, right!? I recognize the blessing ... Right now where we live it is 13F below zero with wind chill effect of 25F below zero so ... not have the furnace or hot water heater working doesn't bear thinking of!
Penelope P, I feel for you with the water leak. I hope you are able to get it sorted soon. At least you have a dishwasher and washing machine both working, even if the arrangement is a bit odd! We are very grateful that both of ours are cold fill, so still work fine. Here's to 2021 improving fast for both of us! xx
Penelope, I grew up in a house with no central heating and limited hot water (a hot water tank which supplied the bathroom and an electric water heater in the kitchen), and M had no central heating and no bathroom so we ought to be able to cope, but it was a long time ago and we take the warmth and convenience too much for granted now. Our heating insurance is supposed to be a 24 hour service and always has been in the past, but it has obviously fallen apart at the moment - I guess they probably have staff shortages due to the pandemic and (quite rightly) they prioritise households where there are elderly people or anyone with medical issues. To be fair they did authorise us to get another engineer out and he came very quickly, but the repair needs expensive parts. We have been through the policy details carefully today and have decided we are clearly covered for the repair with no limit to the cost, so are going to ask Friday's engineer if he can get the parts and come back and fix it as soon as possible. That should get it done a lot quicker. Unfortunately it is still going to take at least a few days and this is going to be the coldest week of the winter. Fortunately that only means about 30 degrees Fahrenheit. I can't comprehend living with your temperatures!
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