Wednesday 16 January 2013

January 2nd 2013 - Can I swap John for central heating????


January 2nd 2013 - Can I swap John for central heating????

Well we have been home for almost a week, and have spent most of that week with John being ill; the cold really took hold of him. This was not helped by the fact that the house is still so cold, have you ever felt the type of cold that gets into your bones and no matter what you do you ache, well neither had I until this week.
We also have our first row, the most ridiculous and stupid row imaginable, the sort that you don’t know how it starts, why it continues or where it came from. But it ends with me upstairs and john downstairs, not speaking for an hour.

We both apologise and realise that we are just so cold and have been through so much that we are short tempered and have no one but each other to take it out on. We decide that we are going to go around the house and try to seal every hole and draught.  So that at least our bones won’t hurt.

Again I don’t ever really remember seeing this bit on the TV shows either, but it does happen, I love John and he loves me, but I could probably trade him in for a working central heating system at this moment in time.

The cold and lack of home comforts still get to you; maybe if we could just have a shower in the warmth it may not be so bad.

By the end of the day the house is slightly warmer, we have curtains up in the main bedroom and hopefully all draughts have been eradicated, I could cry from happiness and I feel my body start to defrost.

Top tips

1.       Doing this in summer and autumn may seem bad, but be prepared for winter, it will be cold and there will be no real heating available. You will shower in a room where the temperature is only a few degrees above freezing.

2.       The cold will affect your mood, you may argue over nothing, realise that this is the case so you get over it quickly.

3.       Do not have the only working bathroom on the top floor and the only working wood burner on the ground floor (it's a long way down)

6 comments:

  1. Oh my dears, I know exactly what you mean, when we moved to France it was January and very cold, these old houses take a lot of heating up but we stopped all holes and droughts and bought several of the Petrol fires, they are wonderful, that was 4 years ago and we still use them, we think that we prefer the ones that are petrole and electric (with a fan) better as they send out a more even heat but some evenings we have to switch them off as it gets too hot, give them a try and keep warm....xxx

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  2. What happened to your wood burner? Think I would install another one upstairs Jenny. Alternatively, you could keep each other warm ;-)

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  3. Good luck with your renovation. Plan Bs are boring (From one Manc to another)

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  4. Thanks Tracey

    As our friend said, "never have a plan B as the only thing you can guarantee to succeed is plan B"

    Love your blog page by the way, and if Richard Branson should meet you in Space, please ask him to pop over to France when you're finished ha ha ha

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  5. Hi Ray

    Unfortunately the wood burner is 2 floors down! we are working on the heating for upstairs :)

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  6. Hi Roz, thanks for the advice we now have a little paraffin heater and it really makes a difference.

    Speak to you soon :)

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