The view from my window

The view from my window
The view from my window

Thursday 15 October 2020

10%!

Would you believe it was 7°C (44°F) today and windy and I've been without heating since Saturday! I know, that's what I was thinking! I know Max's company is flat out (Jordan's been working weekends) but thankfully he sent me a message yesterday to say he was on his way over to have another look at it and he still couldn't figure it out! I've been solving the problem by meditating and drawing on that British stiff upper lip (nah, not really, it's called loads of layers and keep moving)! For the most part I can deal with it because I have a couple of small electric heaters and I only need to put a few layers on and embark on getting stuff done to keep warm, but I must admit it's "nippy" (to say the least) in the mornings. Well after yet more cussing Max ended up face down inside the bowels of the "mechanical bits" of the central heating/hot water system and suddenly I realized the radiators were coming on. I called down to the basement to tell him and he said that couldn't be right, but when I confirmed to him that they were, indeed, heating up he figured that somehow the water heater pump had been hooked up to the central heating pump and the fact that he had turned the water heater off on Saturday because of the leak was what had caused the central heating to stop working! So he has to come back and redo that and bring the supplier back with him to sort out the leak in the water heating system. I also need them to look at the timing programme because while I had heat from 6 a.m. this morning until around about 9 a.m., it didn't come back on again until 6 p.m. and went off again around 8 p.m. so I think they really have to reset the whole bloody thing back to the manufacturer's settings and start again. In the end I thought "sod it" and for the first time in 10 years I lit a fire in my fireplace and have had that roaring away for the past three hours. I checked online first about the "no more open fireplace edict" (I'm still waiting for the quote to get the cassette insert for the fireplace), but it seems that we are no longer allowed to use open fireplaces as "our primary source of heat", and since my fireplace isn't my primary source of heat (hardly, right, if I haven't used it for 10 years), I got a rather nice fire going this evening and very pretty it was too. All I was missing was a couple of bottles of wine and some good company!

Today I had my pilates class in the morning and I have to admit that it is probably my least favourite class, although I do get what it's trying to achieve. Finally, after four weeks of consistent attendance at my various classes, I'm starting to enjoy them more - or "get the point" of it all I guess. I know myself well enough that it usually takes about three weeks of "oh bloody hell, I really don't want to do this" before I get to this point and begin enjoying it and, hopefully, seeing some progress. I say "progress" because my weight has barely moved but I definitely no longer ache after the classes and I actually feel rather good - which is the whole point really, I suppose. Losing weight would be great, but feeling well and able to do whatever it takes to live my life easily on my own is more the point. The picture below pretty much sums up my whole logic of why I'm doing all this! I'm still making it to the gym at least once a week, although I suspect Dave is going to leave me standing on that one, but I'm already at the point of wanting to push myself a bit harder, so I guess consistency is starting to pay off!

After pilates I dropped some stuff off at the recycling plant and then dashed off to buy a new gas bottle as the old one just ran out. I remember last year - 1 July to be precise - was when I first hooked up this gas bottle. It was the night of the horrendous storm which knocked out my electricity for 24 hours just three days before the wedding, the same day as my family were flying in from England and with all my shopping for 10 people for 10 days loaded up in my slowly-defrosting freezers, and my gas cooking bottle decided to conk out. It was laugh or cry at that point (thankfully I laughed) but I would say that bottle lasting from 1 July 2019 to 14 October 2020 wasn't bad going for €34 was it!

After that I headed out to do my weekly shop. While I was at the supermarket I wanted to get a tape measure for my sewing kit because I seem to have lost mine, but when I looked at the cheap little retractable tape measures for €6.20 I thought I'm not paying that! About a km up the road is a small "sell everything" type of shop and I got the exact same tape measure for €1.50! Pretty much everything is cheaper at that shop, so when André's closer to getting his own place I think that will be where we will head to first to get the basics for his apartment. Talking of which, he and Lily have an appointment at court to sign off on the divorce on 30 October (how sad is that!) and then in the afternoon he has an appointment at the bank to look into how much he can borrow to buy his own place. I'm going to go with him as he's not used to French banking, after living in Switzerland for the last 10 years, but it'll be interesting to see just what he can afford on his own!

I'm in the mood to cook at the moment, so if I have time, tomorrow I will run out to the large Asian store near here to get everything I need to make mapu tofu. My mouth just waters when I see some of these recipes, but when I get looking at too many I end up making none of them so I'm going to try to go with just one and actually make it. After that I'll pick Jen up as she is off this week and wants to go to IKEA in Geneva as she has her eye on a few things from the catalogue I picked up last week. I'm happy to go back anyway as I may well buy a few fittings to start the business of changing my bathroom sinks and buying a hand basin for the toilet, but I guess it'll depend on how much we can fit in the car. Haven't we all done that - gone to IKEA with a a car the size of a mini and come out with enough stuff to fill a small moving van? Or bought the biggest Christmas tree we could find and then wondered how the hell we were going to get it home? Or is that just me?

Anyway, in a rather serendipitous coincidence, I received a notification two days ago from a local DIY store called Bricomarché saying that as I'd now spent over €500 in the last however long (it must have been over a long period as I hardly ever go there), they were offering me 10% off everything in the shop bought on one ticket and within three months so I may well go back there and look for bathroom fittings if I don't find what I want at IKEA. To my mind many of the DIY stores round here are much of a muchness, but I have always been really happy with the service I get at Bricomarché. In fact a few years ago I wrote to their head office to commend the staff at my local store saying that they may not be the biggest store round here but they were certainly the most helpful. Credit where credit is due I guess! If I do decide to use this 10% I will probably get quite a bit of the bathroom stuff from there and a chainsaw, as I have loads of wood downstairs in my basement but once the new cassette is installed in the fireplace I will be limited to smaller logs. I guess it's right what they say isn't it, a woman's work is never done!

Oddly enough, I can't tell if this picture should be attributed to
Mike Peace or Mike Pence (do you think he has a side gig going already
 for when he gets kicked out?)


22 comments:

  1. Brrr, but what a reason to have that fire. We are still without our gas fireplace insert repaired or replaced, but after all the stupid pipes and new water heater, we need to see what the remainder of the year looks like for hubs earnings. Good luck to Andre finding out what he can afford and it being enought ot afford what he wants. Sad situation, but if they both will be happier in the long run it is better.

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    1. Yet again it seems like our lives are mirroring doesn't it (and not in a good way this time). As for André, I still think it's a "stupid" unnecessary divorce and just sad but better to get it over now when they are young I guess!

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  2. For what do you use the bottle of gas? I really like the saying. I read it twice to Tommy and a dozen times for myself.

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    1. We don't have mains gas in our village and I don't like electric hobs/cookers so I use the gas bottle for cooking on the stove top. My oven is electric but I barely use that now. And I liked that saying too when I saw it - it makes sense doesn't it!

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  3. Shame about your heat. My thermostat does the timer thing, I don't use it. I keep it set at the same temperature in the fall and winter. I do the same thing with the A/C in the summer. it may cost a few pennies more a year, but I'd rather that and be comfortable.

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    1. It made sense to use the timer when I was at work because I was gone 12 hours a day, but you might be right about just leaving it on "low" and continuously. I'll speak to Max about it (although at this point I'm probably the last person he wants to see right now)!

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  4. I was laughing when I read your question about returning from Ikea. Years ago we went to Ikea in Atlanta (the closest one to us) for a particular closet organizing system. Well who can go that far without looking through the entire store. We took my mini van and by the time we were out and loaded we seriously thought we had gone beyond the load limit for weight. We have never driven under the speed limit the whole trip before, but we did this time in case the tired blew from the weight we could possibly control the car better.
    TheHub has NOT gone back with me since. (I did get a lot of additional cool stuff that trip though) He has also recused himself from any future Ikea closet organization. But that is another story entirely.

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    1. I think for most men IKEA is the bowels of hell isn't it. I love the place but I know what you mean about buying too much stuff. Mr. Bean does a wonderful gag of buying a sofa and it ends up on the roof of his mini with him sitting up there steering it! You should look it up on Youtube sometime!

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  5. It is hard to even imagine it being that cold anywhere. I'm still risking heat stroke every time I go outside to do anything.

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    1. Oh wow, it was 7°C at around 5 pm so I have no idea what the temperature was later. Max just left and I commented that it was just as well I discovered all this crap in October because in January I would be camping out at his place to come and fix it! That being said, I genuinely enjoy the cold so I can live with it - just not when I'm getting out the shower!

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  6. It was 11⁰ here first thing which was notably cooler than it has been, so I don't envy you. I'm looking forward to seeing your new fire, I've always wanted a log burner.

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    1. I like my fireplace - I think it's pretty. And in any case I wasn't going to knock it out after just having the floor redone. This will be a log burner that fits inside the existing fireplace so I may use it more. Of course I would like a huge aga in a farmhouse kitchen but that's not going to happen at this stage of my life is it!

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  7. I also meant to say I am 100% a believer in the fact that your mental health and wellness have a huge effect on your life.

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    1. You won't find me disagreeing with that! Sure I would like the body back that I had just 10 years ago but failing that I can live with it as long as I feel good - and so far I do!

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  8. I love the wellness/illness sign; too true.

    IKEA! Oy, we thought we'd "stop by" the new one in Charlotte and were there ALL day, following the path to the exit!!

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    1. Ha, I know what you mean about needing a GPS to get out of IKEA. They even trap you at the checkout with more stuff you don't need!

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  9. Ikea! Not only do we try to fit very large items into very small vehicles, when we get home we realise that what looked like normal sized furniture is actually very large! This happened to my daughter when she bought a wardrobe. We struggled to get it to fit in her room, it all but touched the ceiling! We both looked at it and said 'it didn't look this big in the store!' Since then if we see something that looks big we say 'is this an Ikea moment?' lol. I also once bought an oven when I went for a Christmas tree!! In scratch and dent of course! Always look in scratch and dent area first, we've have loads of bargains from there!
    I hope you get your heating fixed properly soon! I also hope your son gets offered a decent mortgage that is affordable too! Good luck. xx

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  10. I know exactly what you mean about overestimating the capacity of your car boot! We went to IKEA because Jen had seen a TV table she liked and I spotted the scratch and dent only as we were leaving. Will look in there next time though because I'm sure there's going to be a next time. When we got back André showed us some new build apartments on the hillside near Jordan and Jen that looked lovely - and very within his price range we think. Either way we're preaching to buy less house than he can afford because there are always surprises aren't there. I think he's quite stoked about it though and it's definitely helping to keep his mind off the divorce!

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  11. It's been -9C here in the mornings. I had to bring the dog waterbowl in because the water was freezing solid. We've had snow off and on and for a couple of days, but just flakes and nothing that stays thank goodness.

    Hope you're able to get your heating fixed soon.

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  12. One time I was working for a long-term car rental company and they had given me a Mercedes C class vehicle as a company car. I went to IKEA and bought a shelf unit that was about 6 ft. thinking that I could just fold the back seats and fit it diagonally. It was a "WTH?" moment. Apparently not all cars have foldable back seats. I had to leave the package at IKEA and the next day borrowed a staton wagon from the company to take it home.

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    1. I think we've all those WTH moments haven't we! Funny now, but not at the time!

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