Brrrr it's cold!!

What is one of the worst things that could happen on one of the coldest winter days...

a heating boiler that decides not to work....which is what I found when I got up this morning.

Embee had gone to work and wouldn't even have noticed. I called the chap who services the boiler and left a message on his answerphone and waited for him to call back. I advised my mother to put on extra clothes and she had an electric convector heater in her sitting room so I knew she was OK.

I wondered whether to light a fire in the main sitting room, but decided against it as the chimney has not been swept for many years and I might well have ended up with worse than a cold house. I was imaging the chimney either catching alight or clouds of soot and smoke billowing back into the room-not something I was willing to risk-hypothermia seemed the better option!

Although we have done a lot of insulating this old Victorian house is quite difficult (and expensive) to heat. The kitchen faces north, never gets any sun and feels cold even in the middle of summer, so this will give you an idea of how it felt today with temperatures hovering around freezing.

I even put the oven on and baked a lemon cake just to warm up the kitchen. It was surprising what a difference it made, just the have the aroma of baking wafting through the house.

At lunchtime I had the all important call from the boilerman he suggested I re-set the boiler which, I confess, I hadn't tried to do as I didn't want to make the situation worse. As it happens, this was all that was necessary; the boiler immediately sprang to life and within an hour the house was warm again. So far (touch wood) it seems OK but it's an old boiler and I'm sure it's in the latter stages of its life. So that was my little drama for today!

In case you are wondering what the peculiar picture is...

...this morning I took some photos of spider's webs with ice on them and fiddled around to see what I could create.
The one above was hanging from the body of my car to the wing mirror.

Archives:
2008: Witty Wednesday-32
2007: Macaroni Cheese