Monday 6 March 2023
Now I’ve discovered the ‘delay’ setting on our washing machine, I often time my washes to coincide with the ‘economy’ electricity tariff between 04:10 and 07:10. I have just hung out a wash because it was partially sunny. As soon as I got back indoors and looked out the window, it looks like it’ll rain. According to my laptop’s weather app, it’s three degrees and cloudy. My mum messaged me earlier from Kent, where she said it is minus one and frosty. Slightly random thought process, but the weather and washing are easy places to start this morning.
While we were looking for houses in Scottish Borders last spring/summer, we spoke a lot to a school friend of mine from Kent who has lived near Berwick-on-Tweed for most of her adult life. I remember her saying that it will be colder than we expect and that the winters and a month or so either side are harder than in southeast England. She reiterated the cold, the rain and the challenges of winter. She also talked about how hard it is to heat old houses in that weather, especially when they’re not on mains gas, for example.
Chris and I have thought a lot about what she told us. We knew it would be colder and wetter, and in many respects we were prepared for that. However, even if you bring up your entire, previously-barely-used rug collection, your warmest duvets, your thickest jumpers, your small collection of thick socks, your warmest hats, scarves and gloves, still nothing can quite prepare you for the kind of cold and winter up here. And, while it may be meteorological spring already, we know there will be more days, if not weeks, of winter-feel. Indeed, a Beast from the East v2 has been forecast over the coming week.
Temperature-wise, today for example is warmer than the southeast and we have no frost. However, we live in a valley where the wind whips around the house. The wind here definitely comes from somewhere colder than I’m used to. It may not have rained much recently, but we’ve had so much rain that the ground is still squidgy, a lot more squidgy than you’d imagine not in the aftermath of days of torrential rain. Maybe there are more grey days here too.
Everyone knows that Scotland is wet and grey most days. As a pay-off, everywhere is significantly more green than in the south. Significantly greener. A blue-sky day is to be appreciated and enjoyed, which is easy to do because it is so beautiful, and I suppose uncommon enough that you really notice it. Here, if you spot that the sun is out, go out. It is less likely to stay like that, I think (I could be wrong), than further south.
Heating, yes, that is a problem, and our house isn’t even particularly draughty. Stone houses are cold until the walls are heated. To heat the walls to keep more heat in would require a constant heat source. That, as we have found out, is criminally expensive to do. But it did work for the week or so we had effective heating by having kept it on for 24 hours a day. Our house could probably do with more doors so the kitchen, hall, stairs and living room are not partially open-plan. The previous owners put in porcelain tiling on the ground floor. It is a very cold and hard surface. We are only slowly building up a rug collection.
We chatted to a few people on Saturday at the monthly farmers’ market in Selkirk. It was a milder day than it had been and it’s easy to talk about the weather with strangers. At least two people we chatted to made reference to how hard it is in winter and how much easier things are in summer. I am currently reading a book by Libby Page called An Island Home. I have been relating to it for the comparisons between London and remote Scotland, though the novel’s setting is even more remote and weather-challenging, being a small island (it’s based on the isle of Eigg) in the Inner Hebrides. There is reference to three kinds of islanders: natives, who were born there and likely come from families with generations of history on the island; locals, who have lived there for at least five years; and blow-ins, who maybe visit the island, fall in love with it and move there, but leave after two or three winters because it’s so much harder than they expected. People told us it would be hard, the winters, and we knew it would be cold and wet. But I think what we didn’t expect, and which I suppose you can’t prepare for, is all the challenges that come with winters somewhere like this.
It’s not just the wind, rain and cold when you’re outdoors, it’s being cold significantly more of the day and night than you can maybe imagine. It’s freezing pipes, keeping a fire burning (I’m not going there, I’ll leave it at that!), realising limitations on small and/or electric boilers, discovering plumbers and electricians (and other tradespeople) are (A) busy and (B) not keen to drive out to remote, rural locations, discovering that laundry will not dry in less than three days, by which time it doesn’t always smell fresh, that your hot food and drinks will be cold before you can savour their warmth, that walking barefoot, or even just with socks, around the house is foolish, that your hands and face will often be cold, mud and dirt will accompany you everywhere, a drink of tap water will likely give you brain freeze, drip-drying dishes is not particularly viable (a tea towel is your friend), wearing jumpers for a day or two longer than you usually might (it’s either that or wait three or four days before you can wear them again as they’ll take so long to dry), wanting to eat only hot food … the list goes on, really it does, but they are the first things that came out in a stream of thought.
It has been hard, ongoing, but it has also been rewarding; challenges come with a sense of achievement. We have had a comparatively easy life, easy winters, in London for years. It is (so far) good to be learning that there is far more to appreciate in everyday life than we had done for years. Even in the wind and rain, both of us still spend ages looking out the window every day in awe of the beauty around us. We are, of course, very much looking forward to spring and summer, but, despite all I’ve said, I know that both of us have enjoyed a lot of things about winter and our time here so far, some things obvious, some less so. Not once have we even waivered about being here, but who knows what the rest of the year will throw at us, or indeed the next few years. I feel now that we need to make it to five years.
The photo below is of Ettrick Marshes, so, clue in the name, boggy and wet. A break in the rain yesterday for a walk. Still think it looks lovely, even without sunshine and in winter.
