Winter has come to Blois and the fireplace at Closerie Falaiseau is not ready. Which is to be expected. Snow came surprisingly early this year, but didn’t last long thank goodness. We’ve had some very cold nights (-5°C) which challenged the underfloor heating system upstairs but when Relationnel woke up to 15°C in the bedroom the first morning, he read the literature and made the necessary adjustments. Today, however, I decided to add a layer of clothing, particularly on my legs. I’m not used to this in my overheated flat in Paris! The first of the photos below was taking from my office window on 5th and the last on the 12th so you can see how quickly the leaves disappeared.
In our early days here, pre renovation during the winter, if we made it up to 15 degrees C during the daytime I thought we were doing well! But we survived it. I couldn’t cope with that now, that’s for sure.
I was glad I read your book in the summer. I think it would have me shivering and shaking now! I think age has a lot to do with it too!
We spent our first winter with the staircase screened off with bubblewrap so it didn’t act like a chimney funnelling all our heat out the as yet uninsulated roof. It’s definitely the legs that suffer — the difference in temperature between knee height and head height can be 15 degrees.
Spot on Susan…
I’m sitting here in the longére with freezing legs as I work on the ‘puter!
Radiator is doing the top of the room nicely…
The temperature in my office is still at 13.5°C every morning. The oil heater we bought kept giving off intoxicating fumes when we turned it on this winter so we took it back to Mr Bricolage and they gave us a refund. We then bought another one at leboncoin.com for half the price and it’s doing very well. It heats up all the layers in the room surprisingly quickly and DOESN’T SMELL.
How horrendous! Interesting about the difference in temperature between knee height and head height. We do have floor heating upstairs, which helps. Relationnel has this laser temperature probe so that he can check the temperature at any place in the room.
Love the photo with the frost! I can’t believe how early is has been cold this year either! I guess we better prepare to be in it for the long haul! I hope you’ll get the fireplace sorted soon!
Thanks. Unfortunately the fireplace doesn’t look as though it will be finished when Relationnel goes back on Monday so we may have to postpone our New Year toast!