I don't know what's wrong with me at the moment, but I'm really, really tired. I haven't been working any harder than normal and I haven't been doing anything out of the ordinary but for some reason I'm tired. I woke up at almost 9am this morning which is so not like me, I'm usually up and about by 7am and yesterday afternoon I was so tired that I curled up on the sofa and had a nap. I think it's the weather, I may me going into hibernation mode early this year. It's raining and it's cold and yesterday, when I went to the car boot sale at 7.45am, it was 6 degrees!! That's 10 degrees lower than this time last week and when I got back with my haul of goodies, I was so chilly that I caved and lit a fire! In august ..... whoever heard of such a thing. I would have put the heating on but oil is so absolutely, extortionately expensive now ....... £500 each time I have a tank full of oil ..... so I am going to have to be really careful with it this winter and only have the oil-fired heating on a couple of hours each day to heat the water. Heating for the house is going to have to come from burning coal and logs on the fire and from putting on extra layers of clothes. I am also going to be making a massive draught excluder for in front of the living room door to try and keep the cold out of the living room and putting a thicker curtain over the front door. I know that some of the bloggers I follow have amazing tips for thrifty living and for keeping costs down and these have been very helpful but if anyone has any tips for stretching a small budget a bit further I would be most interested to hear them. It all helps.
Kay, you are not alone in feeling the cold at the moment. I too have felt tired, lethargic and generally off colour for the last couple of days. I,m sure it is just the dullness of the days and lack of sunshine. We have LPG for our central heating and hot water (also expensive; around £130 per month in the winter months) and an electric fire to top up heat in the living room. Are you able to stockpile some scavenged wood at all? It might help to eke out the coal and the bought logs?
ReplyDeleteHi Pensive Pensioner, yes I usually grab any fallen branches and sticks that I find in my field and I have been known to stop on the lane on my way home and pick up anything I find in the road, everything helps.
DeleteI put my heating on yesterday, it just felt bone chillingly damp and cold. Luckily the house warmed up fast and I turned it off after a couple of hours. I can not remember a colder August and we are a few degrees warmer in the valley, my friends in Brynamman have had their heating on for a week.
ReplyDeleteHi Pam, that's exactly the problem in my house. It's not really cold but it feels chilly and damp.
DeleteKay, I know exactly how you feel. Everything seems an effort, and I am feeling chilly - not surprising with the ghastly weather down here in Devon and Cornwall yesterday and today. We light the fire every evening now - as you say Oil is SO SO expensive. We have the boiler on for less than 2 hours just for the hot water. I try so hard to be economical. Luckily we have a supply of logs from tress floating down the Tamar! We can now burn last years logs while the latest supply dries out. It is so hard, and it is still only August!! Keep smiling and good luck. Maybe we will have an Indian Summer which will cheer us up!
ReplyDeleteHi Angie, I had a lot of bits of wood that ended up in my field after being washed down the river Seaton last year in the floods. The river is the boundary to my field and it's amazing what was washed away and dumped in my field. Plastic balls, toy dinosaurs, plastic bottles and I even had a couple of 8 foot decking planks wedged up against the fence!! I always try and collect fallen logs and sticks for the fire, my daughters used to try and pretend they weren't with me when I was on a wood foraging mission :-)
ReplyDeleteHey Kay, seems so strange to read your blog post sitting in front of my heater here in Oz.......Interesting reading about the different way of doing things, like heating etc.
ReplyDeleteWe have a wood heater in our great room and that's the only heating as such. We just throw on an extra layer, but of course our Winters are alot milder than yours and we have access to a good wood supply. Can't offer you any tips as such on staying warmer, seems you've already thought of things with draught excluders and heavy drapes. Hope you get a little more sunshine through Autumn to cheer things up a bit.....Claire x
Thats a lovely fire in the photo. I have found that when the fire isn't litI.It helps to have a chimney balloon thing that fills up the chimney. and stops draughts Also.I haven't done this myself but I am interested in Rocket stoves Ihave seen examples of on You Tube, but am too chicken to have a go at putting one together! It really shouldn't be so expensive to be warm in this day and age.
ReplyDeleteOther saving money ballooney things are having a plastic bag filled with water in your toilet cistern so you don't flush so much water away,I think water is expensive in Cornwall.
. As to feeling tired I think people don't realise what a strain it puts on the body to adjust when the weather changes as drastically as it has in the last weeks. I have to say that if I went on being tired I would take myselfto the G. P. and get tested for iron deficiency as I remember having it very badly when I was younger and feeling so much better after an iron'shot'.
Like others I am hoping for an 'Indian summer;.