58. Is the Grass Greener? Beautiful weather to compensate for our bitterly cold house

Wednesday 15 February 2023

It’s 07:20 and I have just taken a photo from where I’m sitting, looking out the window. It’s grey and drizzly-looking and indoors is ridiculously cold. I have tea by my side; there are only a few minutes when tea is at the right temperature to drink, a far smaller window when it’s this cold indoors. The kitchen temperature is seven degrees. I am still partially on Indian time, five and a half hours ahead, so was more than ready to get up from about half-six, but it was a struggle to leave the cosy warmth of three layers of duvet. The boiler is still dead, though with the reset button pressed down, I can get it all to light up. It just won’t stay lit up when I release the reset. I figure that means there’s hope for it.

Our guest, Carla, has been great about it, not complaining and accepting rugs, a hot water bottle and hot drinks. Fortunately, the immersion is working fine so we have been able to have hot water, though from cold to hot requires more immersion time than we thought so the water has been a minimally-okay warm rather than bone-heating hot (which would be amazing in this kind of cold). Carla, however, took up my suggestion of an outdoor shower and went out in the dark last night to have a shower, coming back indoors looking and sounding invigorated. Once the water is hot again, I may return to the outdoor shower, I genuinely love it and how awake and warm it feels, more so, somehow, than in the bathroom (which is probably just as cold as outdoors at the moment, ha ha).

Chris, Carla and I spent the day going to some of Chris and my favourite places, including snowdrop-viewing, walking alongside St Mary’s Loch and Clydesdale stallion-petting. I have always been allergic to something around horses, most likely hay-related. I am always very careful after stroking horses not to rub my eyes with my horsey hands and to clean my hands as soon as possible. We got home, my eye watered (probably the shock of the cold indoors after the warm car) and I rubbed it. This morning, I still have a swollen eye and cheek. It made me feel very ‘city’ and, were Carla not around as a happy distraction, I would also have felt spectacularly sorry for myself.

Particularly after twelve days in Delhi and being in the hermetically sealed environments of hotels, planes and airports, I really, really appreciated a day of largely being outdoors. And it was sunny.

Fortunately, the house is so lovely that, despite the cold, I can appreciate how good it is to be back home here. After my trip and having only a hotel room as ‘home’, I am appreciating how much space we have in this house and how much more comfortable and easy it is having friends to stay. The large kitchen table is also a source of great joy. We don’t even have a table in Lewisham, though we do have a good line in lap trays.

This morning, I imagine Carla and I will go for a long walk before she heads home to West Yorkshire. Once I’m home from dropping her at Lockerbie, it would be good to unpack.