Unexpected effects of freezing weather

(photo by Lee Beavis, today in neighbouring village.)

With a wind-chill factor bringing the temperature down to minus 25 Celsius let me tell you it’s rather cold round here. For those of you lucky enough not to be experiencing this kind of weather let me explain what it means. After a very brisk walk around the block with a reluctant dog and a very hot shower too warm up ( I’m showing off here, half my nearby friends have no hot water as their pipes have frozen), I did a few normal Saturday jobs. After watching the machine spin in a very dry kind of way I realized that not only have the pipes to the washing machine frozen but that I’ve now got to wash clothes by hand, BY HAND for crying out loud, I don’t even do that on our yearly camping holidays.

I also had to go back and get dressed again, and even with an extra pair of tights (I don’t do tights, haven’t worn any since primary school) and another long sleeved t-shirt, as well as sheepskin boots (which I’ll probably wear to bed tonight) I am still cold.

The frightening thing is that we couldn’t get the house any warmer if we tried, apart from dousing everything in petrol perhaps. The fire has been on non-stop for 24 hours, and I am so grateful to have a form of heating that relies only on the big pile of wood that we have in the garage, and that will not blackout at any moment, which, according to the experts , is going to happen any minute now with the electric grid.

It’s wonderful to be able to appreciate something that bugs me the rest of the time. I realize when I wrote my list for prince charming that central heating was not on that list, although nor was an indoor toilet, I was brought up to expect this kind of thing as normal. So I shouldn’t grumble that our main form of heating needs cleaning out every other day and somebody to get out of bed and start it an hour before the house will be bearable, but I do, apart from today that is.

Even worse the arctic wind means that the satellite dish is having a strop, I can’t understand for the life of me how these kind of events usually provoke a baby boom 9 months later, we won’t even be on speaking terms if I don’t get to watch the England rugby match.