Period Chill

[Flyfisher]

I realise our more northern members will be muttering under their breath about soft southerners, but my outside thermometer was registering -5.5C today. Fortunately, my bedroom was a toasty 4C as I looked through the window across the snowy fields . . .

 

[jocelyn plummer]

It said -13 for parts of North Norfolk, so I reckon you came off lightly!!!

 

[Flyfisher]

Yes, I heard -12C, but we're tucked away in the balmy south west.

 

[MdB]

.

 

[LadyArowana]

I realise our more northern members will be muttering under their breath about soft southerners, but my outside thermometer was registering -5.5C today. Fortunately, my bedroom was a toasty 4C as I looked through the window across the snowy fields . . .

I would just like to add that there comes a point at which being "southern" is not the soft option, hauling bags of groceries up the hill when it's pushing 100 degrees for example. On balance I prefer too hot to too cold though, and the sight of ice on a window like that would probably see my instant demise from hypothermia. Luckily our concrete box is quite well removed from the bugs and beasties, one friend with a house was remarking on the cobra in the garden, but was fairly relaxed about it as it was apparently "only a small one" :shock:

Hoping all our members ( and their houses ) cope OK with the cold snap.

 

[tobydog]

Sorry but I chose this week to take a business trip to San Francisco. Slightly chilly but wall to wall blue skies. Heading back to the snow on Friday.

I do feel bad though because I left Mrs. T with the snow, chickens, her mother with a new hip and a dog with a dodgy back

I'll make up (or pay for it) later.

 

[LadyArowana]

Sorry but I chose this week to take a business trip to San Francisco. Slightly chilly but wall to wall blue skies. Heading back to the snow on Friday.

I do feel bad though because I left Mrs. T with the snow, chickens, her mother with a new hip and a dog with a dodgy back

I'll make up (or pay for it) later.

Excellent planning, of course there is nothing colder than a Summer in San Francisco, so offering to take her back in a few months time might not be the best plan, unless she likes a chilly breeze and rolling fog.

 

[masochists-r-us]

I realise our more northern members will be muttering under their breath about soft southerners, but my outside thermometer was registering -5.5C today. Fortunately, my bedroom was a toasty 4C as I looked through the window across the snowy fields . . .

We're lucky in the Midlands. It's a sweltering 6C in my kitchen today and as my Husband would say, at temperatures like this who needs a new fridge? Seriously though, I'm beginning to wonder whether we shouldn't have gone into battle with our CO for double glazed windows, beautiful as my new oak,single glazed leaded lights are.

 

[tobydog]

Lady A - until a couple of years back I was out of here every year at different times and I've seen all sorts of weather. I think though that I might swap a fickle weather system in the summer here for the awful summer you have just missed in the UK . Just remembered that I forgot to hide the remote thermostat so I'll probably be heading back to a very depleted oil tank :roll: .

 

[Flyfisher]

We're lucky in the Midlands. It's a sweltering 6C in my kitchen today and as my Husband would say, at temperatures like this who needs a new fridge ***?

*** or heaters as I call them at this time of year. :wink:

 

[JoceAndChris]

Brrr! Our windows were the same as FF's this morning. With 5 or 6 hours of rads on we've just got the house to between 7 and 10, though it is a fairly warm 17 in the brek room where the Rayburn is. We're all huddled there.

I collected the new laid eggs and thought it was funny they were cracked, thought they must be lacking grit, decided to just smash them on the ground for the hens to enjoy ( they're very cannibalistic creatures), but on throwing they stayed firm- they'd frozen into solid lumps! Which had cracked the shells. Poor hens, just turned up their radiators.

 

[Zebra]

I recommend a bed-brick for cold nights. It's a brick which you put on top of the woodburner for the evening, and then wrap in a towel to take to bed with you. I also recommend warming the pyjamas on top of the woodburner whilst the fire dies down - being careful not to get burnt pyjamas.
Last year a bottle of milk froze on the doorstep so I put it in the bathroom basin to thaw so that I could throw the broken glass away. It took a week. This year is not so bad, so far.

 

[JoceAndChris]

A brick!! It would all be unimaginable without an electric blanket, a hot water bottle, a 13 tog goose down duvet, thick multi layered pyjamas, weighted down with kittens on top!

 

[Flyfisher]

I started reading Zebra's post with Joce's hens post in mind and was thinking it's a bit of a rigmarole for hens. :lol:

Actually, it's a bit of a rigmarole for people really when electric blankets are the real answer. We couldn't survive without them. Even in a near-freezing bedroom a nice clean toasty warm bed is a wonderful luxury and the thought of the warmth to come makes undressing in such cold conditions almost bearable . . . until the inevitable occasion that you jump into bed expecting blissfull warmth only to discover you've forgotten to switch the thing on. :shock:
Timers can be wonderful things!

 

[MdB]

We currently have a large amount of 9mm sterling board between us and the outside world. Heat pump + stove is working quiet well at keeping us warm though and it has only got below freezing a couple of times this year so far and even then only briefly. Lets hope the gulf stream keeps working for a while longer.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Grrr, those Cornishmen should not be allowed to gloat! :twisted:

Bit worried that I saw posters saying that the older people ought to have it 21 degrees and above. My parents won't visit here until it warms up substantially. Is it really true that the elderly must have 21 degrees?? Certainly the difference I feel when I'm having an unwell day, and so am inactive, compared to a well and active day bustling about, is extraordinary. You get so cold when you just sit about.

 

[Moo]

Those of us who grew up in the days before central heating developed a very effective bedtime technique:

At night, remove your shoes and get between the sheets fully clothed.
Hold your nightclothes close to your body until they and the sheets have warmed up. Then, very carefully, avoiding any movement that might let cold air into the bed, remove your clothes and get into your pyjamas.
Drop your discarded clothes on the floor beside the bed.
In the morning, reverse the procedure.

Much more environmentally friendly than electric blankets.

 

[Zebra]

a 13 tog goose down duvet, weighted down with kittens on top!

Ah that's where I'm going wrong. Hmmmmm. Next door has four cats. Do you think I could entice one or two of them in at night, to lie on my bed? How would I keep them from wandering off? Perhaps I could weight them down with something else........

I'm with Moo. Pah to electric blankets. (Actually a bit jealous!) I'm being all nose-in-the-air greeny do-gooder, and not using fossil fuels for heating at all. Bed brick and burnt pyjamas for me!

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Alternatively a hot water bottle with a faux fur cover, cashmere bedsocks and a cuddly black labrador puppy (with real fur).--- yes, we nearly temporarily fell into the category so aptly described in Country Life a few months ago, entitlted ''The gun dog in your bed'------ it seems not to be too bad a thing to do so long as you remember to dry him off after he has been out picking up!

In reality, our new dog sleeps in his own quarters, but he does love the sofa, and kept me very warm whilst I watched Restoration Man!!!!

 

[Moo]

Does anyone (cue Penners?) have access to that lovely cartoon where the country hostess tells a guest that, because the weather's a bit chilly, "I've put a couple of extra dogs on your bed" ?