The central heating has finally gone on

We're back home again, having all enjoyed our break away together.  I have taken an extra couple of days to deal with a few things that needed my attention but now I'm ready to get going again.

Whilst we were away, the first big storm of the autumn hit the south of England.  Locally, one neighbour now has several fence panels missing, and another lost a plum tree.  Winds of 99mph were recorded at the Needles, the most westerly point on the Island.  Since our return, it's been blustery, wet and cold - the central heating has finally gone on, just an hour in the morning and again in the evening.  Our thermostat is turned down to 13 degrees so the heating doesn't come on until the temperature in the flat drops below that.  We know of many people who have their thermostat much higher.  I'm sure if they just turned it down a couple of degrees there wouldn't be a noticeable difference in anything except their energy bill.  I shall continue to monitor our energy usage, which is obviously going to be much higher during the winter months, but we are currently in credit with our monthly payments.  That's the way it works - in credit during the summer when usage is low and then the money is there during the winter when we need the extra gas and electricity.

I still haven't managed to actually read the water meter properly, but I had a look at the last 4 bills we've received over the past couple of years.  I worked out our average daily usage (thank goodness for calculators!) and found that our water consumption has been gradually decreasing as we have been more mindful of how we use water but, due to the increase in standing charges, we're actually paying a little more each time on our bills.  We can't control the charges and as we already use less than the average water consumers, we can accept that.

The clocks went back an hour at the end of October, and although the mornings are light quite early, dusk is making an appearance by late afternoon.  This is the sky at about 4.15pm yesterday:

The longer evenings are a good excuse to curl up on the settee, wrap up in a quilt and read a book or knit :-)

I did manage to get all the washing out on the line over the past couple of days and it was more or less dry by the time I brought it back indoors again.  Good drying days are few and far between in autumn and winter, it's just so damp and cold, but one benefit of being at home is that I should be able to take advantage of the odd bit of good weather to get some washing dried outside.  It's certainly better than having damp washing hanging around the flat.

N planted the garlic yesterday.  From 4 bulbs he got 51 cloves, plus the one Elephant Garlic clove.  Fingers crossed they all grow.  A couple of the cabbages have been badly attacked by aphids/blackfly, and N has been picking tiny caterpillars off some of the plants as well.  I think we may need to spray them.

Yesterday we spent some time looking at what needs to be done before the end of the year.  All of a sudden, Christmas is not so very far away.  We actually planned out a calendar for the next few weeks, as we were a bit concerned something might get forgotten if we didn't write it down.  By the time all the appointments/birthdays etc had been written down, we began to realise that we need to be a little more organised.  I need to get back to some serious list-making and it's a good excuse to get busy with some needles of the sewing and knitting variety!