Satima's Blogspot: The Nice and the Nasty

Sunday, 4 November 2007

The Nice and the Nasty

Sunday, November 04, 2007 |

Posted by Satima Flavell

Several nice things have happened over the last few days. First, my friend and cousin-by-marriage Elfriede rang me from Germany, which was a delightful surprise as we hadn't chatted in a while. It's autumn over there, of course, and from the sound of things they are having pretty similar weather to us. It's still very cold here in the southeast of South Australia. We've gone back to twelve degrees Celsius during the day, complete with pouring rain and howling winds, and at night it's dropping to two or three degrees Celsius. Brr. The dearth of warm weather is one of the things I really don't like about living here. In fact, one not-nice thing that happened this week was an electricity bill for nearly $400! This flat has a built-in electric space heater and I've been very glad of it these last few months, but I've been dreading the bill. I've been paying a bit into the account every pension day but I'd still only paid half of it by the time the day of reckoning arrived. I hate to think what I've done to my carbon footprint, too. It's obvious that I'm going to have to allow $50 each and every pension day to pay for electricity. (Blankets and hot water bottles are fine, but they don't warm my hands while I'm typing and sometimes my frozen fingers just won't hit the right keys!) This amount is at least twice the budget I used to allow for electricity in Perth. Sometimes I think I might as well have stayed over there and gone broke as moved over here to do it! So thank heavens for the nice things. I'm trying to focus on them instead of panicking about finances.

Another nicey was a tiny Lotto win – probably only about $20 to collect but it will go towards that wretched bill! And one really exciting thing is that a friend in Perth has offered me a free plane trip over for sometime next year – WOW! I'll keep you posted on that one. Maybe I'll make it to Swancon after all!

The fourth nice thing is that over at Writer Unboxed there is an interview of one of my favourite writers, Jacqueline Carey, by another of my favourite writers, Juliet Marillier. The first of three parts is up here. The remaining two parts will appear on successive Fridays. The preceding post on the blog, Dear Charlotte is also Juliet's – it’s about Charlotte Bronte’s letters.

I'm afraid there's still nothing happening on the writing front apart from a bit of editing, and for the same reason as last week – I've been out most days and when I haven't been out I've been catching up on e-mails and critiquing. I'm starting to think that maybe I need this break from the WIP to allow the story and my handling of it to simmer for a while. Well, that's my excuse, anyway!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...: Here in the Hills in Adelaide and in a 1950 double-brick house, it gets pretty freezing too at times. We've only had ducted gas central heating a couple of years and it's wonderful but the bills are phenomenal for that too.

Spaceheaters are just as much power-guzzlers though! Your bill is half as much as our central heating bill for keeping the entire house warm day and night all through winter.

I invested in fluffy acrylic jumpers, track suits and even thermal underwear to keep going, plus - believe it or not - silk nightgowns or pjs are fabulous insulators in summer or winter too. They're all cheap on eBay! A big help for typing was 'fingerless' gloves. I still use most of these to keep the thermostat down on the central heating.

Sometimes, before central heating, the warmest place in the house was in bed with electric blanket. That's when it's nice to have a laptop...; Monday, November 05, 2007
Anonymous said...: PS - and never forget Ugg boots!; Monday, November 05, 2007
Anonymous said...: You need a little dog to keep you warm, Satima!; Monday, November 05, 2007
Satima Flavell said...: Thanks for some excellent suggestions, guys:-) Actually I do most of them already, but I do like the fingerless gloves one. The dog is a good idea too but not in this flat, I'm afraid: the landlady would never approve!

Another friend - a Kiwi, of course; you guys know about cold! -told me to get woolly men's long johns! I have and oh boy are they ever warm! So on really cold days I get dressed by the amazing expensive heater then put my dressing gown back on over the top of the long johns and three more layers.

Am I a wimp, or what?; Monday, November 05, 2007
Unknown said...: The best cure for the cold is a steady supply of hot flashes. How do you think I survive the Alaskan winters? Yes, it's hot flashes. This state is a dream come true for the menopausal woman.

When hot flashes fail, layers work wonders. A nice thermal longjohn top, then a t-shirt. A sweatshirt over that. If you need extra clothing, a nice flannel shirt over that.

Thermal bottoms, covered with heavy jeans and/or sweat pants. And don't forget the socks.

And yes, the fingerless gloves are wonderful.; Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Satima Flavell said...: Hot flashes - heh heh. I'm too old for those now but your comment reminds me of a time when I was living at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA. There were several menopausal women meditating together and we were all well rugged up in blankets, which we would individually shrug off and replace from time to time. Now and then one of us would get up an open the window and after a few minutes another would get up and shut the window. Each time there would be a hasty re-arrangement of blankets, depending on the hot flashes situation.

Yup, I could give lessons on hot flash meditations. But Alaskans know more about cold: more, even, than the Kiwis:-)I'll take your advice on the flannelette shirts, Jody. I used to wear those in NE too and had forgotten how useful they are.; Tuesday, November 13, 2007

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