Beginning to get a true appreciation of what it is like to feel cold. Our central heating has now been off for 48 hours, and as the fault is in the boiler, we have no hot water either. The engineer came at lunchtime yesterday and diagnosed a broken fan, but needless to say he did not “have one on the van” (man, van, no fan), so said he would return at 3.30pm today – about 15 minutes ago, in fact. No sign as yet, and no comforting phone call to say he’s on the way. We have had an open fire going in the lounge and, since this morning, a fan heater in my study, but nothing can disguise the fact that the house is, on average, very, very cold. I have five layers on, and Dot has gone to the shops. I would quite like to go out for a walk, because it’s a beautiful day (though cold), but I have to wait for the British Gas man with van and fan.
Yesterday, after the engineer’s visit, we went to the cinema to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, which was pretty good actually, and the cinema was warm. Not the sort of film I would want my grandchildren to see. They would be totally terrified, but I was only mildly frightened. Besides, it was warm. We locked ourselves in the lounge for the rest of the evening and watched TV. I know doing something physical would have made more sense, but somehow being cold puts you off doing anything constructive. I suppose it’s like wanting to lie down when you have hypothermia, though we have not quite reached that stage yet.
The heating failed before the Tuesday Group came round, but happily the house had not lost much heat by that time, and we were relatively comfortable. Just as well, because the group included George Myers, aged about six weeks, who had some unusual theological and prophetic insights but is a bit sensitive on environmental issues.
One good thing: I am now feeling quite a lot better and am hoping that whatever it was has gone away permanently, rather than slipped off for reinforcements. Dot still has some back pain and visiting the chiropractor twice a week. On Monday I managed another win at chess after trying an unusual gambit – knocking my opponent’s drink over while he was out of the room, and having to clear up the broken glass while he tried to concentrate on the game. Fortunately he is a nice bloke, and I stopped his clock for a while, so he wasn’t abusive when I won.