Cheery's country living adventure

Cheery_Daff

Evening chums!

Well, that was rather a palaver 😮 Thank you EH for reporting back 😊 

We woke up on Saturday morning to several inches of snow, and no electricity, which some of you rightly deduced meant no heating...

Also no mobile signal 🙄 and we theoretically have a landlines but no phone plugged in, so no way of reporting...

Togged up and trekked over towards the farm, checking on 90 year old neighbour on the way (no sign of him, but he doesn't usually get up that early anyway). Bumped into farmer neighbour who gave us a lift round yo his in the snow plough 😁😁

Had a cuppa, filled a flask, and spent 40 mins on hold to the power company to tell them a power line was down in our field...

Got a lift home on a farm buggy thing, and spent the day trying to keep warm painting the kitchen and clearing my study, which was (a) used as a storage room for the building work, so full of all kinds of crap, and (b) the only room with a fire.

Decided to trek back to the farm for more hot water at 6.15. Checked on elderly neighbour - he was fine, blazing fire in the log burner and someone had dropped him round a dinner. Planning to sleep in his chair cos the electric blanket didn't work but otherwise OK. 

Road was NOT ok though. Ploughed in the morning, but so much wind there were 4 foot drifts all over it, we cocouldn'walk through them. Headed over the field instead, howling wind, giant drifts of snow meaning we literally had to crawl up and over the stiles on our hands and knees. Utterly ridiculous, like some kind of Arctic explorers film 😮

(Will continue in next post...)

Cheery_Daff

Took us an hour to get half a mile to the farm, but they made us a cuppa, filled flask and hot water bottle, and then farmer got dragged out to pull someone's car out of the snow, and we walked back across a different field - more windy but no walls, so no drifting snow. 

We lagged the few remaining new pipes in the loft, then lit a fire, and used the remaining battery in both laptops to watch a single dvd borrowed from the farmer.

Sunday the electricity geezers turned up, but couldn't fix the wires. House dropped to 3 degrees and stayed there. Still no mobile signal. Farmer ploughed our drive for the electric guys though so we tentatively got the car out and headed optimistically to the cafe 😁 Sadly it was shut 😮 but the attached shop was open and the lovely staff made us a cuppa from the staff kitchen and let us charge our phones for a bit.

Headed into town and bought supplies, found another cafe to look up generators etc on the Internet (and how to drain central heating), bought food, then headed home again quickly as it had started snowing again.

Spent the evening draining the water out of the central heating system so the pipes didn't burst 🙄 also found the storm kettle so we could make our own tea, much excitement, even if we did have to do it in the garden 😂

Cheery_Daff

Monday - still no electricity, but at least the mobile signal returned, and we'd managed to get hold of a plug in landlines phone. Had to cancel kitchen fitters who were meant to be fitting the granite and doors and appliances.

Also had to cancel work - no way I was driving anywhere, and we couldn't both leave the chickens as their water kept freezing over. Mr Cheery was willing to drive though, and the cafe open, so we had a warming breakfast, then went to see a local friend for a shower and the use of her Internet.

Power company website said our power was fixed... but it wasn't, so we had to report again- power line was still dangling at head height in our field. Charged up the tablet, and managed to download a few podcasts so that was Monday evening's entertainment, and we found a tiny metal pan we could shove in the tiny fire so heated up some bombay potatoes 😂

Today the snow had pretty much all gone! Still no electric this morning so had to put off the kitchen fitters again. Mr Cheery had a dentist appointment, and a telephone docs appointment, so we headed into the city and I went to work for a few hours, what a novelty! Spent much of the time explaining about things I didn't do yesterday, and things I won't be doing the rest of the week as we're on strike 🙄😂

Back home and the power is back on! Just having a cuppa and trying to figure out how to refill the central heating system - much easier now we have Internet and plug in radiators to keep us going!

One kitchen geezer is coming at 8.30 tomorrow to fit the back of a cupboard, but I have no idea when the granite guy is coming now - if I was him I would have planned something else for tomorrow 

Needless to say, we've not finished the painting, so I'll try to at least get the ceiling done before the bedroom carpet comes on Thursda.

Still, at least all my worries about transferring money to different people have gone - it's all arrived in from the savings account now and I've not been able to pay anyone anyway as I couldn't get on Internet banking 😂 Builder still not sent me a detailed invoice, or one for the electrician, but I know where he lives and he's likely been dealing with some of the same issues as us over the weekend so will let him off. 

Right, best go and figure out these radiators. we turned off the whole water supply so have been flyshing the loo from water stored in the bath so it will be nice having that working again too!

Hope you've all had a slightly easier time of it...

EssexHebridean

I must say I have pretty much NEVER been so relieved as I was to hear from you earlier that your power was back - the crazy low temperatures you mentioned were blooming well worrying me! Thank goodness you will be a bit warmer tonight at least! 

Fortune_Smiles

Good to have you back Cheery.  What an adventure you've been having.  We've had similar issues in the past and now have an emergency kit - camping stove, camping lights, etc and even a small generator.  It doesn't get used very often but golly it's a god send when disaster strikes.

And how vexing to lose your heating when you've only just got it sorted.  Thank goodness you're back to being toasty warm now.

Fortune x

badmemory

With these things planning is the key.  If you KNOW where you can find a good torch, then where the candles etc etc are it takes a lot of the stress & worry away.  It is the old thing about knowledge is power & applies to loads of things. Things are never as bad if you have a plan!

badmemory

Which reminds me that my friend moved house a couple of weeks ago & I don't know where the torch is.  I bet he doesn't have a clue!  I'm going to be the bad guy again.  Som nothing new there then!

rtandon27

So good to have you back Cheery & thankful you are safe and sound!  What an adventure you have had these past few days, so glad your heat and water are working now.

EssexHebridean

I have to say that quite honestly there are no amount of torches or candles that could EVER make 3°C inside a house feel anything other than completely grim to me! 😂

beanielou

Blimey. I have no words.