Saturday 6 December 2014

Sniffling, and we hit minus one!

Well the thermals are piling on now....
minus one tonight,
and the flipping new goose down quilt is being a bit of a rascal.
What it should be doing is keeping us nice and warm at night.
What it actually does is the opposite....
it is two quilts in one....a thin summer one and a thicker winter one,
to be used individually,
or not,
depending on the time of the year and the temperatures inside and out.
Minus one outside tonight, nearly the same inside,
there being no heating on indoors,
because we don't put any on.
Oh we have electric fires,
but do not seem to be able to make ourselves switch the things on.
And the wood burning Rayburn is still work in progress.......
but........the floor tiles are done.
Wahoooo!!!!!!
OK, so they don't heat the place up,
but they do warm us up inside because now we can get on with getting the Rayburn sorted out.

But the darned quilt.....
what happens is that the summer and winter parts refuse to become a whole.
What I mean is, that the two quilts do not like being buttoned together to make a whole, 
preferring to be apart, that is what they want to be,
which means that they slide off each other,
like a couple who do not want to breathe the same air.
It makes the bed cold.
Or hot,
Depending on which part of the quilt / quilts we are under.
Not to worry,
spring soon be here, just got to get through a bit of chillyness,
and as long as I keep my big toes warm.
(they can go nearly purple in the cold and get chilblain itches so socks and boots on all the time now, except in bed, when my other half takes over the foot warming duties, bless him)
and keep my scarf wrapped round and round my neck,
then the cold is do-able.
We are, after all, living in a house rather than a tent and gazebo,
which is how we spent our first winter here. 
It is, I think, that experience which has hardened us up in regards to the cold.
However, and I do not want to keep banging on about it,
but that new duvet set was supposed to ensure us a warm night's sleep.
It isn't, and so I have developed the sniffles, perhaps a cold, or might be the dust in the house.
Either way, I have a feeling of vague unwellness upon me,
not sufficient to take me to my bed,
but enough to remove all energy and motivation from myself. 
So we had lunch out today.
It was nice to sit in a tidy space,
and eat other food,
and be warm.
Tomorrow is supposed to be chilly, but dry,
so instructions issued from Lester for tomorrow are:
- we need to get the pig paddocks sorted out again.

A week ago........


Lester had managed to separate the girls from the boys,
his plan of making gates and walkways to move the pigs about having now seemed to work:


Boys in one paddock, mum and trainee sows in the other.


And then we became diverted onto the house to get the kitchen floor tiles laid,
so the paddock fencing was not electrified, and the pigs knew this, and broke through the separating fence, and now Mum and all are together again. But the boys are getting frisky,
and have been seen to already practice their reproduction techniques on the girls,
which is not good at all, so out we must go tomorrow, to separate the pigs again and get the fence fixed.  We could do with a lollopy day tomorrow,
but not to worry, it will be nice to be out in the fresh air, which might convince my cold that it doesn't exist.
Meanwhile, we feel ten steps behind ourselves, but also ten steps ahead, and all at the same time!

And little Ditsy being caught, yet again, raiding the pig food buckets....


.... and Lissie just about ready for bed.....


..... and Bonny almost asleep on her feet.....


.... and the mists rolling in over the fields....


.... and so signing off from down here in SW France....


Sending blessings to you, 
and wherever you are in the World,
 hoping that your duvet is working efficiently for you.

Vx












8 comments:

Horst in Edmonton said...

Hi Vera, we don't have down filled duvets here. We just use a light fiber filled duvet as we have central hot air heating. This is needed in our part of the world as it gets very cold here at times (down to -40C ) I like my house temp at 18C. I hope you get your Rayburn set up soon as it is very difficult to work if one can't warm up. We had a coal burning stove when I lived on the farm. It kept the house nice and warm.

Tim said...

Vera..
we had the self-same problem with a "multi-season" duvet...
in our case it was Velcro that began to lose its "scratch"...
herself put a large, loose stitch or two of button thread in each corner.
They didn't part company then...
and the stitch...
being large and obvious was easy to cut once we began to roast too much under the combined quilts.
Good luck!!

rusty duck said...

Thermals are needed here too now. And how.
Love Little Ditsy. Is she moulting or a bare necked breed?
What a treat that Rayburn will be when it is finally hooked up.

Ohiofarmgirl said...

those pigs are looking terrific! and i love the pictorial update. excellent. when it's cold in our house the cats come to find us - we all snuggle up. my oldest, boniest, rattiest cat throws off the most heat and so we keep each other warm.
:-)

Kerry said...

I admire your hardiness to the cold. Our heating is disconnected at the moment, so I'm so pleased we have our wood burning stove in the kitchen. Hope you get yours in soon. Hope you get your duvet sorted out too. Perhaps you could stitch the corners together just for the winter, then unpick for the summer x

northsider said...

Can't wait to see pictures of your Rayburn up and running Vera. Love the photographs.

Mizumatte said...

bless you, I really hope you get your rayburn running soon. Jaana and yes you made my day again

Vera said...

Horst, crikey, your part of the world gets really cold! The lowest temperature we have had is -15C, and that was when we were having building work done on the house, so all the doors and windows were open! Hope you stay tucked up and warm.

Tim, our duvets have poppers to keep them together, which work fine. But somehow the duvets seems to slip sideways on themselves. But those two quilts, when they do stay together are too hot! It is likely, therefore, that I shall buy a one only quilt sometime soon.

Jessica, Little Ditsy is a bare neck hen and is as cute as anything. Thermals.....not very elegant but a must have!

OhioFarmGirl, no cats here to cuddle up to, and our dogs are not allowed on the chairs, so I just keep wrapping myself up in layers of clothes, then doing a final wrap of a huge crocheted poncho. Like the size of a barn, but at least I am warmish!

Kerry, I think that we shall become less hardened once our Rayburn gets working! Have psyched myself out to it being a no-heating-in-the-house winter again, but maybe next winter there will be!

Northsider Dave, I can't wait to see the Rayburn up and running either!

Jaana, bless you, and sending you loads of hugs.