Extract from an English Blog in the Vendée

As usual, it’s all go here in the Barley household!

Frost INSIDE the window!Firstly, like the rest of the region, we are shivering under the grip of the current arctic conditions. Normally we would be happy to have a cold snap, knowing we were warm and cosy inside, but this week the coldest temperatures for months also coincided with us running out of oil for our boiler. And of course, because it is so bloomin cold, everyone needs oil so we have to wait until Friday before we can get any more. Not great timing. The trouble is that the level indicator on our oil tank doesn’t work, so it’s all a bit of a lottery as to when it will run out.

So we find ourselves living like it was 1950, all huddled round the log fire at night, kids sleeping in one room with a tiny radiator to keep warm, putting more clothes on as we go to bed than we have been wearing all day… Even the hot water pipe in the kitchen has, we assume, frozen up, as it doesn’t seem to be working, when all the other hot taps do (I think the pipe runs out the back of the kitchen wall and into next-door’s garage, which obviously is rather cold).

Luckily the kids have not been at school for the last 2 days due the the snowy conditions forcing the school buses off the roads, so we have not yet had to endure a 6.30am start. But tomorrow it’s back to normal, so I’ll be lighting a fire before the sun comes up in the morning. Oh joy!

Still, it’s apparently good for killing off all the bugs in the air and just imagine how warm and toasty we’ll feel when we can finally crank up the boiler again!