The alarm woke us first. Too early, it was the alarm set for weekdays, but not holidays. Then the alarm to say the heating engineer would arrive soon. Too cold. Better to snooze. Then Ruth arrived, cheerful and chatty. I reached out to touch Ian who I’d last been aware of many hours ago in my dreams as I curled away from his cold touch. He was fully clothed but for the jeans. He’d been too cold to shed any clothing last night.
He was right. There was a heavy frost this morning. The cold had not been only in our imaginations.
I chose my woolliest socks. Oriana chose a short sleeved dress. Ruth chose shorts. Are we related?
But back to the house, which is supposed to be the subject of this blog.
The boiler took a while to service. Norman probably hadn’t used the timer for several years and it’s seized up. We will have to set the time to fit his settings, rather than set the time and adjust the settings. The boiler is at least big enough for the house – a US gallon per hour. As Ian put it, Who needs a mortgage when you have a heating bill? There are two valves by the boiler; one leads to the radiators, the other to the pool, should we wish to heat it. A further valve half way along the sitting room releases the water to the other end of the house, ie the bedrooms, bathrooms and playroom, which Norman didn’t choose to heat in later years. The radiators have fans to blow the heat into the room, which isn’t a bad solution to a room with high ceilings that would suck up the warmth. Some of them even work. The hot water works off immersion heaters. We could have washed last night.
Just as the heating guy was packing up, Dougie and Dean arrived to cut the grass. I showed them around. The grass has been knocked down by the rain, but back in August it was tall enough to hide Oriana completely and Ruth had only to duck to be hidden too. Since then it’s been lying thick on the ground: a bed of hay, just like in the stories. This morning we crunched through the frosty thickness. You can’t cut grass like that with a normal mower, even if you have one.
By the time I came in from showing Dougie around, Ian had pans at the end of the sitting room catching the drips. It was getting rather musical. I got buckets. We only had two so I had to supplement them with the liner from a pedal bin. Ping, ping, ping. We turned off the heat, at least to that end of the house. Hey, at least the sun had come out.
Our next visit came from the nurses from the vaccine trial Oriana’s involved in. Only blood tests today, but Oriana hates them so hid under the table for a while, ran away to the loo, and was miserable while they took her blood samples and then gave her the pre-school boosters that she’d have had to have regardless of the trial.
Someone from the heating family returned to give us warmth without rain (though now we’ve tried the shower we realise we might have been better with the hot water dripping through the ceiling than the so-called shower in the bathroom). Apparently it was frost damage, nothing major.
Just as Ian conjured up a very late lunch the King family turned up for a reccie. They always seem so competent about everything. Farming and military childhoods – a very practical combination. The kids played. I showed them round. We drank tea. More boxes not unpacked.
When all had left, I raked the grass. I didn’t manage the whole garden, but there are mounds of hay around the place. Now we just need somewhere to put them, something to carry them in… before the girls spot them and make sport.
The girls have bathed. Ian has showered. I am the last of the smellies.
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