Thursday 24 November 2022
I went downstairs at 04:30 this morning to add coal to the fire. I ended up sweeping the floor and moving a few boxes, ornaments and furniture around, all before 05:00; feeling very Dickensian. The heating situation has improved only in so much as there are now a few radiators that aren’t ice-block cold, merely tepid. It is day four of coal issues and day four of blackness beneath my fingernails. I have soaked and soaped my hands, scrubbed them with a very robust nail brush and used an under-nail-scraper; I still have a sliver of coal dirt behind my nails. And on almost every item of clothing I have worn in the past few days.
I need to not go on about the stove, coal and the lack of warmth.
Yesterday, I had my first solo drive in the area. Nothing about driving without Chris worries me, I was just conscious that it was the first time I was doing the kind of travel you do when you actually live somewhere. I set off in the rain at 08:45 for an appointment at a garage to fit winter tyres on my car. I noticed that the clock in my car had gone from always being correct to reading 20:08. It started fine and drove fine. Fortunately, to open and close the two gates, I kept the engine running. Off I went, a forty-five-minute drive along uppy-downy country lanes in the rain. Ping! A warning ping. Phew, just a warning that the screen wash was low. Clock still wrong. Then I shifted position a bit, looked at the dashboard and saw a yellow warning triangle with an exclamation mark in it, which to me meant imminent, catastrophic engine failure (I realised there would be a red alert, which I imagined would be at the point the engine actually failed). For the rest of the drive, I fretted about whether I would pass any cars or trucks before being found frozen to the driver’s seat, the car having given up completely. In more positive moments, I thought how incredibly lucky I was to be driving to a mechanic.
Turns out, the warning triangle, an area of the screen I can’t usually see, related only to the fact of their being a warning, ie that the screen wash was running out. As for the time, the battery was indeed almost dead and is now replaced. I can’t begin to express how relieved I am that the battery didn’t go at home or on one of my impromptu roadside stops (photographs, to buy eggs, to admire the view), or for that matter at a service station on our way up to Scotland from London with a car full of stuff and needing to arrive before the removal men on completion day. That’s definitely a first, one of many recently, actually driving to a mechanic when something goes wrong with the car that would cause a huge amount of inconvenience and inevitable expense if discovered while not en route to a garage.
As a treat after my tense drive to Hawick, I drove home via Selkirk for coffee and biscuit from Three Hills Coffee Roastery. I may rarely have a coffee out while we’re in our Scottish home compared to frequently in our London home, but I promise to appreciate every coffee out from now on. This one hit the spot completely and I drove home with my winter tyres, brand new battery, a full tank of screen wash and music playing, thinking how lucky I was to be living in such a beautiful place.
So that was yesterday’s distraction from the lack of heating I’m not going to mention again.
I made a Dundee stew for dinner, incorporating some garden-grown thyme and bay (which looked ever so slightly different to the bay I grow on my balcony in London; it kind of smelled of bay and we seem ok today, ho hum, but I have a niggle it isn’t a bay tree). It tasted like there was something missing (or maybe that was the taste of not-bay leaves). The recipe I used said to add Worcestershire Sauce, which I forgot to buy on my supermarket shop in Hawick (“Hoik”; I feel like a local for no longer saying “How-ick”) and wasn’t sold in the smaller Co-op I looked in before leaving the bright lights of Selkirk behind to drive home. I know that in London, I could have walked down to a supermarket below the flat and to other supermarkets. But, kind of unusually for me, I didn’t dwell on the lack of Worcestershire Sauce and how things would have been in London. Instead, we both enjoyed our bowls of stew and mash, sitting at a table (no dining table in London) and regularly doing a “Shh, listen”. No sirens, no traffic, no trains; relative silence. I like and appreciate that comparisons between London and Scotland matter less than I thought. I feel a bit like a slightly different side of me is more apparent in each place and I am enjoying the differences. Immensely.
Today, we are expecting a coal delivery. I have the first video chat either of us has had since arriving here, which crucially means we’ll have a better idea of how good or otherwise the data SIM WiFi reveals itself to be. I also want to work on my study so that I can work in my study rather than on my lap on a sofa in front of the multi fuel burner which …