Winter has arrived

This is, I think, probably the coldest weekend we have had so far this year. According to my garden thermometer it is just above 4d as we speak. It's gloomy and grey, damp and dark. There is snow forecast hereabouts, although not right at our place. It is proper winter weather.

It is therefore entirely unsurprising that our central heating decided yesterday that it was going to cease working!  To be more accurate, it is the thermostat on the wall that has decided to die. I think the heating itself is probably working perfectly well but with the thermostat out off action I can't turn the heating on. Last time the thermostat stopped working I fiddled about with its cover and discovered that inside, for unfathomable reasons, it is powered by batteries.  I replaced the batteries and it has worked well ever since.  I tried the same remedy yesterday when I got back from work and nothing happened.  I have tried again with several different batteries and there is absolutely no sign of life. We do have a small radiator and a small blow heater which are preventing us from freezing but you couldn't say that it is cosy and warm at our place.

There should be numbers on that screen

Quite coincidentally, I bought us new dressing gowns yesterday which are proving their worth. They are both warm, snuggly dressing gowns. Mind you, having said that I bought us one each, the one that I thought was mine seems to have been commandeered by someone else:

We have been saying for sometime that we would like to put an environmentally sound wood burner in the house.  We really liked the wood burner we put into the Tupton house. It wasn't very large but it kept the whole house toasty and was much cheaper to use than the gas fired radiators. We said when we got it that we wished we had done it much, much sooner.

I know that there are concerns about wood smoke and particulate pollution, but I still think that responsibly sourced wood in a properly installed, low-polluting fireplace is likely to be better for the planet than using gas or coal fired electricity for heating the house. So today I put on warm, snuggly winter clothes and ventured out to investigate. I have now bought a wood fire and all its paraphernalia to go in the corner of the dining room where the china cabinet presently sits. I have the contact details for an installer who I will contact on Monday. 

I wonder how long his waiting list is. I can't have been the only person who got up this morning and decided that the time had come to do something about winter warmth!

I occupied myself early this morning by constructing an aeroplane for the Kit Kats. It cost me the grand total of $4 in Kmart. I suspect it was an end of line price.  The cats are a little puzzled by it:

I think the wings are putting them off. They can't seem to work out how to get past the wings to get in the plane.  If they don't work it out I might take the wings off and convert the plane into a boat :-D