Monday 27 November 2023
We have added to our list of professional tradespeople by having a chimney sweep pay us a visit, at 8am on Saturday morning when it was roughly -7.5°C. I left home at 8am, waving hello and goodbye to the chimney sweep as we passed car/van. Chris said he was at the house for an hour, got rid of the soot that our brushes couldn’t get to, investigated the water in the burner (fine, ‘just’ a build-up of condensation) and told Chris lots of useful things about our chimney and chimneys in general. We now have on order a chimney fire stopper, which looks like a stick of dynamite and which, once released, unleashes something that basically removes the oxygen from the chimney and puts the fire out. I had no idea such a thing existed but it seems like a good idea, particularly when you live at least fifty minutes away from a fire station. He also advised us to install a carbon monoxide detector, which I am surprised we haven’t twigged we don’t have. I think I thought that because we don’t have a gas supply we don’t need one.
Last week, we had our fibre broadband connected and a whole new system installed in the house, routers and boosters and stuff I kind of didn’t really take in when being told about it. I hadn’t been at all convinced it would all work out but we appear to have significantly higher upload and download speeds now, though Chris has noticed the improvement more than me.
On paper, things are much improved in the house compared to last year. The best thing that could happen for me in terms of the house is not to need to call anyone out for at least the winter. I have very, very low expectations of that happening.
This weekend, my friend Ita and I decided to meet up somewhere between where we live and where she lives (Manchester). Neither of us had been to Lancaster so we caught trains to meet there. I love having so many new places to visit by living somewhere new. We had coffee, lunch, went to a few vintage clothing shops, walked for miles and chatted nonstop for the five-and-a-half hours we were in Lancaster. We both liked the city and will hopefully meet there again one day.
I drove home from Lockerbie station at around 18:30. Unbeknownst to me, all along the way people were putting up photographs of the aurora borealis, which I saw on local Facebook groups later that night (though apparently seen through camera lenses rather than with the naked eye – I don’t quite understand that). However, it was a full (or nearly full) moon and I had had to scrape ice off my car at Lockerbie. Although it was night, the moon not only lit the way, it also made all the ice/frost sparkle. It was a truly magical drive back. I took a few photos around the house a bit later that night, it was so bright. Didn’t see northern lights, but there was a sense of something special and different about the sky. This photo was taken at 21:08 and it really was that light. Amazing.
Yesterday, Chris and I drove to a nearby caravan park with a shop and café. We walked from there to the nearest pub, arriving at around 12:30. The signs were up proclaiming food all day, open from 11am every day. At the door, a “closed” sign was up but the door was open so we walked in. No one was in the pub but the TV was on and a fire was lit. No one came into the bar. So that scuppered plan A lunch and a drink in the pub. Chris was even more annoyed than I was and ranted most of the walk back. We ate (drank? Slurped?) soup and bought cake to take home from the caravan park shop instead.
I may have given myself too much work to get through today but I’m feeling mildly confident I’ll get at least most of it done by tomorrow.