Yes, we won the pub quiz last Sunday night (
we won't mention that there were only half the number of teams due to the weather). We each made enough to pay for our participation and the pie and peas served after the match, so we went home happy! Weatherwise the week has been atrocious with -7° at night and a north wind blowing relentlessly. The cottage is now classed as freezing. We have the craziest heating system in the county, relying on domestic fuel (for the Aga) wood and coal and a bit of electricity that heats the hot water at night - during the day the Aga takes over the hot water duties. We have worked out that if we want to be warm everywhere in the cottage we will have to rob a post office, so I am permanently in the kitchen with 'my' Aga while GW freezes quietly in
his hell hole the dining room. The sitting room fire is burning up most of the woods in Dorset and seems to heat the crows sitting on the chimney pot rather than us. Today it is mild and the wind has at last dropped after two weeks of constant blowing but I fear this is most temporary.
Only two weeks to go until Christmas and I have done ... nothing. Well, I have ordered a small turkey from someone down the road and that is all. I still don't know if my favourite children are coming over from Belgium for Christmas. Despite emails telling them to book tickets before they cost a squillion pounds I still have not heard. There is no point in phoning as their state of the art mobile phones are tuned to refusing calls from their mother
but not from their friends and I know that they are on their laptops as they are permanently hooked up intraveniously to Facebook. I hope they will come but if they want to stay in Brussels for Christmas and not spend all their hard-earned salaries buying ridiculously overpriced air tickets then I quite understand.
Just think of GW and I, my little treasures, huddled up to the Aga trying to eat 4kg of turkey!
Oh, and if anyone is interested, for Christmas I would like a pair of mittens so that I can still use my laptop!
Over the weekend I will try and do a post about the wonderful scallops we have sourced from Lyme Bay ... one of my most favourite shellfish!
Sounds like our last winter in France...I began to wonder where the next tree was coming from!
ReplyDeleteGood job we're not thinking of trotting back to France for Christmas, as apart from the weather being lousy someone with a tractor and trailer...so hardly invisible to the all seeing eye of my neighbour...has taken all the wood...both chopped and unchopped.
@FITW - ah, yes! One of the great mysteries of rural France - disappearing wood! I used to cut my own and obviously locals thought she doesn't need it/ she's a foreigner/ she's richer than us/ she needs to learn who runs this commune etc. I'm still awaiting payment of wood delivered 10 years ago - ha!
ReplyDeleteYou need a) a Slanket, and b) an electric bed warmer, and maybe even c) a stepping machine to get the circulation going and warm you up with indoor exercise.
ReplyDeleteFailing that, drink lots of whiskey. :)
Hope you manage to stay warm.
It's barely warmed up here since the last snowfall. I hope you can keep yourself warm a little longer.
ReplyDeleteThanks for dropping by my blog. Sorry to hear about your wait for your washing machine.
@Sarah - have the electric blanket, thank goodness! I can't see me using an exercise machine though!
ReplyDelete@Dedene - it has warmed up here a little but forecast not good after the weekend! Cottage is quite liveable in at the moment, except the washing machine problem but it will be here soon (I hope!).
Thanks for tracking me down to my new blog home. I've put you on my new bloglist.
ReplyDelete