Good Golly Miss Molly

It sure is cold round these parts! -12C last night, in a little town not too far from where we live.
-12C? I don't think I ever remember seeing that sort of number before in a weather-related situation, not in warm and sunny (ahem) England. You'd expect it if you lived in Antarctica (can you live there?) for instance, or perhaps Alaska or Siberia, but not here. BRRRRRRR.

Our nasty rental house is tucked away in such a stupid position in the middle of the woods that the snow that fell on Sunday night (only about a centimetre, so no big deal really), still hasn't melted.

When we first came across the place that we rent, we fell in love with it almost instantly. It's in such a peaceful setting (when you ignore the neighbour's seven, yes seven, dogs barking/yapping), out in the woods. If you use the bathroom at the front of the house you can sometimes hear the cows mooing in the neighbouring field - now there's a noise you don't often hear whilst doing your ablutions. There's no traffic noise, unless you count aeroplanes and the occasional helicopter overhead; there are no drunken youths wandering past on their way to/from the pub. All in all, rural, aural bliss.

Unfortunately though, you have to take the rough with the smooth when it comes to living in the countryside. And the rough comes in the form of being ABSOUTELY FREEZING and being HELD TO RANSOM BY CALOR GAS, who supply the LPG which powers our heating system. So far, in just three months, we have used £500-worth of LPG just for heating and hot water. That is a shocking amount, when you consider that in our last house (in the middle of town) it cost us about £50 a month for 'normal' gas which powered the heating, hot water and the cooker. And, when you also consider for just how many days we were without heating because of the crappy plumber who took so long to figure out what was wrong with the system. Since discovering just how extortionately expensive LPG is, we have been on a cost-cutting mission which involves having the heating on less. And that's just tickety-boo, isn't it, when the weather decides to turn decidedly Arctic? Can't wait to move out. Watch this space to see where we end up...