Cold Outlook

We came in from work this evening to discover that our central heating boiler has decided to have a little holiday from working. Whether it is entirely defunked or just a part of it has failed, we haven't yet discovered. What I do know is that it is jolly chilly in our home this evening.

My action plan for tonight is to pile on a few more layers (I'm already starting to look like the Michelin man), find a hotwater bottle and snuggle under a quilt on the sofa. The cats hopefully will oblige by curling up with me and providing additional heat. I knew there was a good reason for feeding, brushing and generally caring for them and this is it; they are living, breathing, walking heat sources ~ hooray!

I've telephoned our absolutely brilliant plumbing and heating engineer and he hopes to be able to come and view the dyfunctional contraption on Wednesday. So it looks like it's going to be a couple of cold nights chez moi! Fortunately we have an emersion heater for occasional use for the hot water, so at least I can still have my ritual 'hot and soaky' bath before bed.

Dave, who is happier in cooler weather than I, doesn't seem to be feeling the cold in the house and he's merrily sitting in the dining without the extra padding, hottie or the cats. Shard, our little tortoiseshell cat, is gently snoring as she is curled up next to me, actually it's not so gentle and she is doing a pretty good impression of a warthog.

A regular reader of this blog asked if I would show a picture or two of the inside of my home, so this jolly fuzzy picture is of our kitchen, taken about three years ago before I had made curtains and blinds for the windows. The kitchen units had just been refurbished ~ I had taken off all the doors which were a dark oak colour and painted them with cream paint and finished them with a clear wax to offer them a little protection from splashes etc.

These units have done splendidly for many years, but are now nearing the end of their usefulness and so, I have been exploring new kitchen possiblities (see Cool Kitchen). What I would really like to do is move the cooker to the wall where the table is, move the sink to under the window on the right of the existing cooker space and create a seating area by the two windows on the left and centre of this picture. I dream of opening up the window on far left to create French doors and put some sort of beautiful ironwork verandah and steps down to the garden. I'm jolly good at dreaming up these shemes, but it takes me an age or two to actually put anything into action.

Well, I'm headed off to the kitchen, a top-up is needed in my hotwater bottle and hooray, Dave is rattling around in there (perhaps tea is on the way), chat soon, Liz
P.S. It's now Tuesday morning and I've woken up to find our house is toasty warm! The boiler has either sorted out its little problem or come back from its holiday... we'll see what it decides to do this evening!