Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Cold
Here's a thing I don't recommend - having your central heating pack up just as the temperature starts plunging towards zero. Having behaved eccentrically for some while, our system finally gave up in the middle of last week, and (I'll spare you the details of the ensuing saga) was still out of action yesterday. Only one room of the house could be effectively heated, by means of a ferociously effective Chinese log-effect fire, and the rest of the draughty old place was probably a touch colder than the inside of the fridge. As the laptop lives in a now unheated room, there was no question of blogging or any such activity yesterday - not only were my fingers not working, but my brain too seemed to have succumbed. I had forgotten how numbing in every way deep, persistent cold is - it makes everything, physical and mental, fainter, more distant, more sluggish, so that the mind barely functions, and can think of little but the quest for warmth. The only cure - as to so many things - was to take a walk. A brisk march out to a local bird reserve in the making - gravel pits which are not yet worked out - got the chi, as well as the blood, flowing, and temporarily restored my spirits with its glimpses of watery, wintry beauty - the sky in the water, the distant trees, the crows mustering to roost as the light faded. I returned to the icebox house heartened and cheered and indeed feeling properly warm for the first time. Sadly, this did not last... However, the good news is that today, at last, the heating has been fixed. I'll never take it for granted again. Well, I shall of course, but I know I shouldn't.
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Wireless Nige. Changed my life: you can blog anywhere. But as a consequence perhaps not an unmitigated benefit.
ReplyDeleteAha, now you know how it feels to live in a New Zealand house Nige, central heating is pretty much an alien concept over here despite the cold - attending a friend's party last winter I was amazed and delighted to find she had central heating - it was the talk of the party and no one wanted to leave! You have to be tough to live round these parts...
ReplyDeleteAha, Kate - wooden tents. We lived in one through a short cold snap in Christchurch once. Invigorating.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up, we didn't have central heating and in the winter I would wear a T-shirt, a rugby shirt, two jumpers and a cravat* about the house as a matter of routine. Now I wear a T-shirt in January. We do learn to take these things for granted very quickly.
ReplyDelete*not really the cravat.
Further to Brit's comment, I came across someone recently who referred to waking up and finding ice on the inside of the bedroom window as if it were a horror story. Wasn't it fairly normal?
ReplyDelete" ..ice on the inside of the bedroom window as if it were a horror story. Wasn't it fairly normal?" You bet - even in the milder, western half of the country.
ReplyDeleteYou remember those cold, pre-global warming days too, Dearieme?
ReplyDeleteAh, the winter of '63, boys. We had foxes crying and scratching at the front door in the night. That and my grandfather setting up paraffin heaters in the garage to stop the car's engine oil from freezing. Central heating and fitted carpets, tsk tsk.
ReplyDeleteIt's awesome how quickly our primal instincts take over. Warmth, shelter, food and security: if any one is missing, we quickly go into "nothing else matters" mode until it's sorted.
"You remember those cold, pre-global warming days too, Dearieme?" I can't remember the river freezing over - that was in my parents' childhood.
ReplyDeleteFrom a wonderful writer living in Montana, comes this recent weather report:
ReplyDelete"I don’t tweet. If I did, I’d report how cold it is. The porch light bulb exploded. This morning the washcloth was frozen to the shower stall floor."
Remember when we used to rub ourselves with embrocation to keep warm?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSHbSseRAqA