Household maintenance

It has rained today, so much so that I did wonder if a monsoon season had sneaked in on the end of summer!  My goodness, did it rain.  Several roads locally have been flooded, bringing back memories of the floods of the winter before last.  We always feel for the holidaymakers who've come to the island to enjoy the sun, sea and sand - keeping a young family entertained when it's pouring with rain all day can get a little expensive :(

It was a day for working indoors, so some housework for me and a bit of household maintenance for N.  It makes sense to me to look after what we have - the things we choose to have in our home have some meaning for us and I don't have a problem spending a couple of hours a week dusting and vacuuming to keep things clean and tidy (ish).  Photos, pictures, ornaments (not that we have many!) all have an association with someone or somewhere, and it's nice to be reminded of those memories as I clean the house.   Today, however, with a little more time on my hands than usual (not being able to get out into the garden), I did make a concerted effort to tidy-up all those things which seemed to have strayed from their usual home - there did appear to be quite a lot of craft bits and pieces scattered around various rooms ;)   I have too many little projects on the go at the moment, and just about every room seemed to have an odd ball of wool, or sewing patterns, or scraps of fabric apparently abandoned.   By the end of the afternoon two of those projects had been finished off and the rest are back in the work-room waiting for my attention.   And there is a new list, of course.

N has continued with some indoor house maintenance, again looking after what we have.  A house isn't self-maintaining (at least, none of the ones we've had have been!) and we think it pays to ensure everything is in good working order and will keep us warm and dry during the winter.  If we spot a problem, we would rather do what we can there and then to deal with it, than leave it to become a far greater problem later.  Those sorts of problems often end up costing money!

We've submitted the gas and electricity meter readings for the quarter, and we were slightly bemused to be told that we have apparently used 50% less energy than similar energy-rated houses in our locality.   How is that worked out?  Which houses?   50% does seem to be a big difference.  We do try to be mindful of our energy consumption so perhaps it is not surprising that our usage is a bit lower than overage.  As we move towards autumn our meter readings will begin to go up again, but because we have tracked our consumption through the year we have a very good idea of what our bills will be and can budget accordingly.  It makes sense to us.