Friday 25 November 2022
We had a coal delivery yesterday. The friendly coal delivery man looked like he lifted 25kg bags of coal and pushed five of them on a trolley through mud repeatedly throughout each day. I feel Chris may have been a little gung ho with his cheery comment along the lines, “We know it’ll be hard over winter, we’re ready for it”. The coal man had the look of someone who, as he said, has lived in Scottish Borders for 51 years and genuinely knows how hard it is and has now placed bets on our survival prospects for our first winter. He was about the ninety-seventh person (give or take) who said he hoped we had our freezers well-stocked, followed by a knowing laugh. We currently have a tray of ice cubes (at least go down with a whisky on the rocks, right?!) and a pint of milk in the freezer. But we do have a lot of tinned, dried and basic food, including Pot Noodles and Pasta ‘n’ Sauce; retro student nights, here we come.
Talk yesterday was of survival. We are a little lacking. We have been advised to stockpile the freezer, but we have also been warned that there will be power cuts. My theory is that it’ll be cold enough to keep frozen food outdoors if necessary, or indoors if we make no real progress with the multi-fuel burner. I shall construct a snow fridge. Ah, yes, and thermals. Must. Buy. Thermals. I will also bring up my Trangia camping stove and ensure a good supply of meths.
The stove/burner, as I type, has just done that really depressing thing whereby it’s died down to burning embers beneath a layer of black coal (in terms of environmental factors, I feel I should clarify, it’s not coal-coal), having been partially alight from firelighters and kindling. The radiators are all on a scale between cold and ice-block-cold. I thought I had a good enough fire going last night to fully power the radiators. Clearly not, though it was less cold than previous nights and we haven’t been cold in bed under our layers of duvet. Cold noses though. The temperature in the house is gauged by degrees of coldness, “[expletive], how can polar bears love this?” being the lowest on our scale so far.
We both had our first Zoom meetings yesterday and the SIM-data set-up worked without hitch. This was a surprise and a delight.
I had a walk behind and above the house in the rain. I loved it. Peaceful, clean, green and beautiful, even with the greyness and rain. I walked back through the top of our land and the squelchy, boggy ground. The neighbour has identified the strange chunks out of the grass as being badger activity. I suspect that isn’t a good thing, so I’m hoping to see badgers soon, before I realise they are a nuisance to have rampaging around your garden.
I spent some more time in my study/the spare bedroom last night, trying to create some order. In our storage unit, we had a lot of hi-fi equipment, good stuff, mainly from Chris’s late dad. I set up an amp, CD player and speakers and listened to CDs while I sorted, unpacked and, ahem, rested. I love the ease of digital music and I also love the sound and process of records but a CD player is exactly what I want in my study. The house is made of thick stone. Chris, in his study at the furthest point from my study, couldn’t even hear that I was playing music. Quite loudly. And I can’t imagine our neighbour will hear anything either. Very. Happy.
At some stage when the joy of CDs was overwhelmed by the discomfort of being cold, I decided we needed a coffee break and a treat, which incorporated a share of traybake so perfect that I’m amazed and horrified I’d never come across it before. Behold, a traybake made from Tunnock’s tea cakes and caramel wafers. Sublime. I’d bought it a few days previously at Scoop Gelato in Selkirk and shall be returning to stock up. Traybakes are all the rage in Scotland, it seems, which makes me very happy.
Today, house-wise, I would like to create some order in the utility/coal/mud room. I haven’t completely ruled out a trip to Jedburgh to look at a second-hand furniture shop that’s only open Monday to Friday. I have no desk, nor even a table (other than the kitchen table), and there’s a limit to how long I can keep working on my lap. It would also be good to finish off sorting the kitchen. It’s pretty much fine but there are too many things on the side that I haven’t thought where to put. The bloody fire too. Maybe I should vary my Google searches and concentrate on how to create a roaring fire that produces enough heat to heat all the radiators.