Tuesday 28 March 2023
It’s 2°C, cloudy and rain and/or snow is forecast. Yesterday, it was sunny all day and cold. I was lulled into thinking the house will be warmer. It isn’t bone-cold but it is cold. However, a few weeks ago, my friend Sarah sent me a message suggesting Oodies. I thought she was being a bit ‘yoof’ for “hoodies” but decided to Google “Oodies” just in case. Oh my, a whole new world of warmth has revealed itself to me. Sarah and I have subsequently had a chat and it transpires that three of the four people in her household pretty much live in them in winter; her husband has not succumbed to the hug of an Oodie. I ordered Chris and I a special offer bundle of two for £99. They’re not cheap, but I’m thinking they can be offset against the cost of heating. We look like – well, they’re not flattering.
An Oodie, for the uninitiated, is basically a very thick, extremely large, hooded duvet with a massive kangaroo pouch and elasticated wrists at the end of sleeves so long you can easily seal your hands inside the Oodie. They are the thickness of a puffy duvet and the velour-like fabric is silky soft. They are about as unflattering as a fancy dress Michelin Man costume, though without the inflated legs. But they are more warm and cosy than I could have imagined. We have boring colours, dark blue and dark grey. My one complaint about them is that almost all the other choices are white or pastel with the kind of childish characters that I can’t bring myself to find cute.
Another bonus is that they are vacuum packed when they’re delivered and it’s very satisfying releasing the vacuum and seeing them grow.
Vaguely on the theme of ongoing challenges, we have had what I suspect is a blocked pipe, rendering the dishwasher unusable. It has water rising into it from the bottom, not draining away. However, it would appear that it’s rainwater that only comes up when water is run down the sink. It’s not sink water, it’s not dishwasher water, it doesn’t smell, but it is slightly brown, like slightly muddy rainwater. We have a list of things for the plumber and we’re waiting for him to be free to come over.
The leak above the kitchen window hasn’t got worse, but that only means the combination of extremely heavy rain and wind blowing in a very particular direction has not happened again.
The extractor fan mouse seems to have stopped trying to chew through the extractor fan and hasn’t even been leaving its signature single poop. Mitch investigated inside the attic for us on Sunday. He confirmed what we’d hoped, which is that it’s likely mice and that there seem to be no bats (the neighbour, last summer, counted 47 bats leaving his roof space at dusk – bats are good, bats eat midges, but I’m happy they’re in the neighbour’s roof rather than ours). Mitch put up two of the mouse scarers (sonar) so we’ll see if that discourages the mice from living up there.
Yesterday, I got a lift with Chris about three miles down the road so I could walk home in the sun. I love that stretch of road, even more with the sun shining and it still being comfortably cold.
Today, I will continue using my breaks to paint the handrail, base rail, newels and newel caps of the staircase (I so had to Google the components of a staircase), having last night finished the balusters/spindles. It is a joy to be getting rid of some of the white of the staircase. It’s a minimally thought-out colour scheme, based solely on the paints we bought for the bed frame. The balusters are burgundy (which looks far pinker than burgundy), orange and dark green. There will be “Kidney Bean” and “Christmas Pudding” to come.
