Dropped 60 Degrees in 24 Hours

I very rarely post without pictures but today I will.

My goodness it has dropped 60 degrees in the last 24 hours is that not plain crazy, from 60 f to 0 f.  So just trying to keep warm, and keep the house heated means that the central heating has been on much more, even though it is turned down to 58 f, and of course we have the wood stove going.  We have steam heat and one of the radiator valves had dropped off, so steam was shooting out all over the woodwork in the downstairs hallway, condensing and forming a puddle on the floor.  The valve will no longer thread into the old cast iron radiator, so we had to close that one off altogether.  Now Mr. B will have to restain the wood work at one side of the front door.  My long walking stick was also sitting there and now has turned white in parts, but Mr. B says he will work on it for me.  He is very good with restoring wood and over the years has refinished several pieces in our house.

I leave for work every morning in the light, but of course come home every day in the dark, so I am missing the light.  When the weather is nicer I like to get out and go to the park, but in winter you don’t feel like turning out of the office, at least I don’t.   Already thinking of spring, I did see some shoots in the garden snowdrops and crocus.  I still have to finish off three more raised bed gardens; I am looking forward to planting in them this spring.

Still working on the Oilily jumper and have finished the two gussets I crocheted down the side and now I am onto crocheting a border around the sleeves and the bottom.  I’m not sure how that will turn out, but am going to give it a go, in the same red to match the gusset.  Will post pics when I am home and it is light.  This is my sit by the fire, evening project, watching Netflix on my iPad or listening to BBC Radio.  I visited my friend Cindy on Sunday and she had a neat little speaker that you prop the iPad up on and plug into the iPad for more sound, although I have found the iPad to be louder than our laptop for sound, I am thinking of getting one.  Mr. B. was able to pick up his coffee from Rwanda.  We do not have a COSTCO card so Steve and Cindy picked it up for us, 2 lbs for $9.00 and it’s a great tasting coffee.  We first tasted this at another friends’ house when we were there for New Year’s Day lunch.

The Boy is car less and will remain so.  He had an accident just before the holidays and is fortunate to be OK and all involved are OK.  He was on an unfamiliar piece of road went over a crest and the road turns suddenly, in fact concrete barriers had been put up to stop people careering off into the river.  So he hit the concrete barrier, the guy behind him hit him, they all got out of their cars, at this point the cars were not too bad until a third guy came over the top much faster and pancaked the two cars in front and at that point all cars were a right off.

Enough with the cars, looking for a good older used car is hard, you just never know what you are going to get, he’s had two good little cars and the mini turned out to be an absolute lemon, on which the poor Boy lost a lot of money, so the quest is off.  Mum can only cope with so much on the car front.  So he will be using public transport and juggling our two vehicles around for a while.  He has saved up and paid for all his cars, with a little help from us, I do not believe in giving your kids everything.  He will get insurance money and can pay off his parents and have a clean slate.  So now he is back to working on his bike.  He always has some mechanical project on.  Big debates with his dad on what wrench/spanner to order from EBay, all boy talk.  I do wonder how single parent families with boys manage without a dad, I know they rise to the occasion, but it must be so hard.

I watched the movie Guilt Trip with Barbra Streisand and in all honestly I can say, a film crew should have followed us on our trip around Florida The Boy and I in a 1970’s VW Bus because they would have got more laughs.  You would think the Boy would have filmed it, considering that’s his major.  Not one of Barbra’s better movies, Yentl being my favourite.

Well enough small talk.

Hope you are all keeping warm and dry, in the North here.

Christy