Deep freeze

Work on the house has taken a back seat over the last few weeks. After getting the oak floor layed and oiled in time for Christmas, and with the essential doors hung for privacy, it's been time to have a bit of a break.

The record breaking freezing weather we're having is taking up more time, be it ensuring we have enough wood for the stove or topping up the boiler pellets and emptying the ash at a faster rate than we ought to be. That's one of the downsides of biomass, higher maintenance especially when it's colder than is normal for the UK.

In the brief moments I've had to enjoy the snow that surrounds Hillside, when I've not been at work, it's been interesting to see signs of the nocturnal wildlife, especially the deer tracks outside the front of the garage.


Last month I mentioned that we'd survived -6C without the harvested rainwater pipework freezing where it runs above ground for a couple of metres. Unfortunately last nights -8C and a full day of sub-zero temperatures finally caused the system to freeze up so we can't use it for flushing the WCs. Hopefully no damage has been done, and at least we still have mains water so can top-up the cisterns manually, although I suppose we really ought to be out collecting snow to fill the cisterns. Maybe not tonight...