Wednesday 18 October 2023
My car’s temperature gauge suggested it got to 13.5°C today. Yesterday, first thing, we had frost, the kind that coats the trees and makes everything look beautiful. The sun shone for chunks of yesterday and today. For Scotland, we now have a series of yellow and even red weather warnings, though it looks like we’re the side of Scotland not to be hit so hard with the wind and rain from Storm Babet.
Chris left for London yesterday afternoon so I hitched a lift with him to the Dumfries and Galloway border and walked back home. There was a sheep on the road, clearly some way from her flock. She ran along the road watching me. I then realised her teenage lamb was behind a fence some way higher up, crying for her. The sheep then did that snorty sheep thing I had never really noticed until I lived here, humans being a minority amidst a large sheep population. I felt really sorry for the sheep and lamb, no idea how to be reunited.
In between writing, I finished off the stairwell. It is now dark blue and yellow; I’m pleased with what a difference it makes and how it doesn’t make the stairwell look narrower. It was all white when we moved in, then I did the multicoloured banister section, then a lot of paint peeled so Mitch scraped off the paint to add a base coat and redo it, then I decided to change the colour to go with the blue and yellow. This is my favourite stairwell option by far.
We have been experimenting with ways to heat the house. Currently, small fan heaters in our work areas during the day, oil-filled radiators in the kitchen and bedroom prior to dinner time and bed time respectively and a blast of central heating for the good of the house during the “cheap” period 12:40-15:40, which means the living room, utility room and landing get warm (the other radiators don’t work – long story, as our heating always is). As for the multifuel burner, I’m awaiting a reply from a company who stock grates as we need a new grate, ours being broken and, I think, unusable.
We have a loo seat, a TV and three pieces of cast iron guttering on order; exciting deliveries coming up.