You know it's cold when you turn over in bed and the part of pillow you hadn't previously been lying on is cold enough to bring consciousness! Can't wait for the new windows!!
There had been snow overnight - not so much on us, although we had seen a smattering, but the hills opposite were covered, as was the valley north of us - it seems we only just escaped a heavy dumping.
Despite the low temperature and the falling rain-sleet-snow, Helen still went outside at 7.30am to exercise, and by 9am we were both in the office eating bowls of porridge and with the gas heater (brought up from the apartment) switched on for the first time. This got the room up to a relatively toasty 16.5°C. Bearing in mind that the temperature of our bathroom and our bedroom has been a constant 9.5-10°C for the last couple of days, and the office has been reaching a maximum of 12-13°C, this felt like the height of luxury - another degree higher and I'd have been in a t-shirt, but we left the heater on a low setting to minimise gas usage.
Helen got stuck into her editing work while I emailed the architect about the rules regarding polytunnels on your land and then spent an hour or two browsing a seed supplier's website, compiling an order before finding somewhere to buy hops from (well the rhizomes for them) so that we can get a hop terrace set up for brewing our own beer later in the year (well, that's my plan anyway!).
We worked on until noon and then broke for a lunch of Tuscan bean soup with some fresh crusty bread - in fact, the bread so fresh it had still been warm when I walked out of Amanda's shop with it half an hour earlier. We ate lunch at the table in the living room - it felt Arctic in there in comparison with the gently warmed office and we were glad to be eating a hot meal.
After lunch, I left Helen back at her desk in the rapidly cooling office (we switched the gas fire off at lunchtime to save on gas) and headed our for a trip to Montecatini - first for the usual methane refuelling of the car and secondly to have a browse around OBI for some new lighting ideas. It has been so cold and wet outside today, with no promise of any let up in the rain/sleet/snow until at least the weekend, that my attentions for the rest of the week have turned to indoor work - and the lighting in the house really needs some really big improvements.
When I got home I took an electric screwdriver upstairs and quickly rehung two bedroom doors that were not quite shutting properly (or opening for that matter) as they both hit the floor part way through their journey to open or closed. That done, and with a let up in the rain, it was time to take Reggie out for a walk in the woods for 40 minutes.
We tramped around the damp woods in the cold then, on getting back to the house, we let Reggie race around the goose enclosure for a while, terrorising the geese as seems to be his new favourite pastime. It was soon time for Helen to set off into town for her Italian lesson, so I went to get some lettuce to put the geese to bed. Helen had mentioned to me that, for the last few mornings, the gander had pecked at her midriff as she leant into the house to rehang the feeder. For some reason, it seems he's ramped up the defence of his territory this week - let's hope it's because goose eggs are finally on their way!
Helen's accusations were confirmed when I went to remove the feeder and had a bit of a stand off with him. He tried three or four times to get a beak full of my forearms, only to be thwarted by mere millimetres.
After feeding Reggie and the cats and lighting the wood burner it was time to prep dinner. Tonight, I've decided to try and recreate one of the dishes our friend Dave the chef cooked for us a couple of weeks ago. No doubt it'll be a pale imitation, but we'll see how it turns out - if all goes to plan, it''ll be gnocchi with artichokes for dinner.
Time to sign off now so that I can attempt to fit a new light in the office so that we can finally remove the fluorescent strip light monstrosity hanging from the three-hundred-year-old chestnut beam!
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