Friday 17 February 2023
We fixed our own boiler (with WhatsApp assistance from ‘our’ electrician) and I’m currently not cold, though still wrapped up in scarf and blanket. It’s 07:00 and I’ve been up for a while because there’s a storm outside and I decided I’d rather be dressed and up and about than lying in bed convinced the house will blow apart. I keep reminding myself, a bit of a mantra, that the house has been standing for 270 years. It is a wild wind out there, though fortunately not much rain so far, just bursts of it.
The house had been getting colder and colder and, me, grumpier and grumpier. I used a small fan heater for the first time yesterday, placed under my desk to keep my feet warm. It was on for maybe two hours and I was surprised how much of my study/office it heated up and how good it was to have warm feet and lower legs. We got the boiler back on (not just the reset button but having to push significantly harder on it than we had been), then knew to release some water to build the pressure up and then, the joy, hot water started coursing around the radiators. It’s not forecast to be particularly cold today – my laptop says ten degrees and mostly cloudy but I have a suspicion that’s the weather in Lewisham … haha, it was Lewisham. Here, it’s eight degrees, cloudy and there is, as we knew, a yellow wind warning. It may be mild, but with wind like this I imagine the house would have become even colder had the boiler not been working. The next thing to do with the boiler is probably to find out why it keeps turning off. The electrician said it looked like it had been reset quite a few times, hence it not being a straightforward reset button-press to get it going again. I suppose in theory, the next time it goes dead, we may well be able to get it going and not have to sit around for days in an increasingly cold house.
I am well aware I am becoming – already am – a heating bore.
Yesterday, I went through the wildlife camera SD cards up to 2 February, when Chris took them out. There are now so many badger stills and videos that I’ve become blasé about them. The neighbour says they’re coming from his garden and it confirms his suspicion that there’s a badger sett underneath his shed. Otherwise, a lot of seemingly-empty scenes, with the camera either triggered too late or wind moving branches etc that are probably too near to one camera. However, we do also have footage and stills of a mysterious bird at night time, a selection of hare photos, a few fox sightings, a particularly large and fluffy fox and deer bottoms (only ever almost off-camera and I realised when looking to add them to this post that they were so underwhelming I deleted them). I have moved two of the cameras and returned the SD cards.
I was fairly busy yesterday and still haven’t finished unpacking. I definitely want to unpack today (it’s mainly miscellaneous bits and pieces that I deemed necessary to take from our flat and which I just shoved in bags, lucky dip style). I need to write and post a birthday card but I think it’s too far to walk to and from the nearest letter box, and anyway I wouldn’t go out in this wind unless it were essential (it’s forecast to calm down by 14:00).
Due to the weather and what I imagine is an increased risk of power cut, it has occurred to me that I should ensure my laptop and phone are fully charged. I have had my morning tea and made up a flask of coffee just in case.
I walked around my usual ‘patrol’ route yesterday for the first time in broad daylight in about three weeks, it’s looking slightly different, more flattened. There are some snowdrops around the roots of a tree and the garden area is looking its most pitiful. I’m looking forward to seeing the changes that spring will bring.
