Just a few degrees

This scruffy little dial assumed immense importance in our house yesterday when oil leaked into the central heating boiler. The first sign was the smell of smoking oil that seeped into the house. We have been (almost) without heating until late this afternoon when the boilerman fitted a new pneumatic piston (or some such).

It was a very, very, very cold day and night and day, despite the heaters we used to warm up a couple of rooms. We realised how comfortable we normally are and how unpleasant it would be to be cold like this for day after day. I even wore a woolly hat for part of the day - and it helped a lot! I went for a short walk to get warm.

The house still reeks of oil but the boiler has stopped smoking. Hopefully we are back to normal from tomorrow.