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Like most Brits, I’ve got a tendency to blather on about the weather. But this summer I think I’m within my rights. The Met Office says that August was the dullest on record, and September has so far been darker, wetter and, I suspect, colder. Last year may remain the wettest summer on record, but this August ranks fifth for rainfall.
If being British doesn’t excuse me boring people about the weather, what if I mention that my central heating still isn’t fixed? OK, it’s too early in the year to switch it on anyway, but what about my trump card: a leaking roof? What if I mention that said roof is just a couple of hundred metres from the English Channel?
At least, it is most of the time. Living by the sea, I never fail to be impressed by the sheer volume of water that seems to get mislaid in some way. It’s not possible to walk along the front in a breeze without becoming coated in an atomised spray of salt water, and at least once a week my windows cycle through clear, salt-rimed and rain-soaked - the only people cleaning windows in a seaside town are the big hotels and the newly moved in.
And then there’s the proper storms; the ones that gather up the sea in great foaming swells and send it crashing inland, bringing beach and sealife along for good measure. The ones that, when they encounter roads lined with tall Victorian buildings, turn into roaring channels of air punctuated with horizontally scrolling raindrops.
It’s wonderful, of course, and endlessly varied. But when your roof leaks and, thanks to Google Earth, you can examine its patchwork of previous repairs from space, it’s also just a little depressing. Particularly as lately, somebody seems to have turned out the lights.
Image by Flickr user Nicholas_T
Not cold enough to put the heating on yet? I beg to differ. I’ve had the heating on for the last three evenings. And, yes, I DID put a jumper on . . .
Maybe I’m just getting old, but I think that complaining about the months where summer should have been is fair enough. It really has been miserable. FACT.
The only thing that’s more dispiriting than the lack of sun is the propect of buying heating oil for the house before the end of September.
I’m not finding it cold enough yet, perhaps I’m deluding myself to avoid a massive gas bill? Still, it’ll be interesting to see what difference - if any - the new set of thermostatic radiator valves makes.
For people who tend to agonise over emissions, central heating’s quite a biggy: the Energy Saving Trust says that it accounts for about 60% of the emissions from a gas-heated house. Government figures put domestic CO2 emissions at around 27% of the UK total, so the nation’s boilers might account for as much of 20% of our national C02 emissions.
That’s in the same ball park as the transport sector, which contributes around 30%, yet nobody talks much about central heating emissions. To be fair, it wouldn’t make you much fun at a dinner party.
I am already wearing longjohns under my jeans if I’m working from home… but the heating stays OFF!