Baby It's Cold Inside!

You're not going to believe the latest from Chez His Nibs and me.

Last Friday night, we came home from work to a freezing house.  We had our takeaway chips under our oxters, lit the fire, turned on the heating, and waited to get cosy.

All was well for a little while, until His Nibs went out to the kitchen to get me another drink.  (I'm especially demanding on Fridays).  As soon as he opened the living room door, the cold that came into the room would stop your heart.

Our fecking heating is broken.  I don't know what happened.  The place was nice and warm on Thursday night. 
I immediately resumed my search for the lovely electrician who used to come to our house and fix things for almost no money.  The last time I saw him, he'd done a course in boiler maintenence, and was all set to start keeping the heating going for us too.

A couple of weeks ago, on one of my trips to Ikea, I bought a new kitchen light fitting.  We currently have the most romantic kitchen in Ireland.  Of the three lights currently on the ceiling, only one is working.  Three of the four corners are steeped in darkness.  If there was ever a place where romance was wasted, it's our kitchen.
So I bought a light and even had the presence of mind to buy the appropriate bulbs. 

I came home, and tried to phone the electrician, Aaron.  No answer.  To be honest, the phone didn't even ring, it just made a sort of disconnected noise.  I was unhappy with this, and worried that Aaron might have emigrated or something.  So I emailed him, and got absolutely no response there either.  I wasn't happy, but in fairness, we spend little to no time in our kitchen.  I didn't think it was a big deal.

It's a big deal now though.  It's been six full days since there was heat in any room other than the living room.  You can physically see your breath in our bedroom.  I had harboured some kind of hope that maybe this would lead to fun warming up exercises, but sadly it's not to be.  In fact, we're both going to bed in two pyjamas each, and trying to talk the dogs into sleeping on the bed with us, for the first time ever, just for body heat.

We get home really late a couple of nights each week, and are only up for about an hour before we retire for the evening.  So the fire isn't even getting going by bedtime.  My hands kind of hurt just typing this.  It's a big commitment just to go to bed, because the whole changing into pyjamas business causes the kind of cold that tends to get into the bones.

We're up half the night fighting over the duvet.  Not because either of us is stealing it, in particular, but because if one of us moves the duvet, dragging a cold bit of duvet onto the other one, ructions ensue.

The dog is in a mad sulk.  The little brat.  If the place gets too warm, he gets sulky too. But I think he's probably fed up of finally being let in from the garden on a cold night, to find he was actually better off outside, where at least he had the space to run around and warm up.
The other dog doesn't care, he just runs around in the complete lack of space that our sitting room contains. It's like living in the bloody monkey enclosure of the zoo, with all the running around, His Nibs shouting at Marley to calm down, and me and Oscar fighting for the warmed up bits of the sofa.

The night before last, I got into bed and assumed that usual marriage laws applied, that I could warm my hands on His Nibs' back, and my feet on his legs.  He almost lost his mind.  There was no talking him around, the mean yoke.

My hands were still cold when I woke up the following morning.

Last night I decided to read for a little while when I got into the bed.  I was too cold to sleep, so I thought I might as well. 
My hands went completely numb.  So I put my gloves on. I know that sounds like the behaviour of an utter maniac, but I was frozen.  I woke up this morning still wearing my black woolly gloves.

Another example of middle age creeping up on us.  When we moved in together first, we lived in the dampest flat in Ireland for a couple of months.  There was no kind of heating there either, and after a couple of months the clothes in the wardrobe started growing mildew.  We moved out, of course.  But strange to say, it mattered less then.  I suppose we were young, and had fire in our bellies to keep us warm.

Those days are over.

Aaron, if you're out there, I need you.  Please. Come home.