getting close to wintertime!

Wow, the weather has really turned cold this week.  It’s a good reminder that winter’s truly on its way!

With that, I urgently need to dig up and use my remaining leeks.  Some are rather tiny, so I was letting them grow as long as possible, but I think it’s time to call it on those ones.  I might just chop & freeze so I have leeks for soup for the next few months.  I also have some not-ready celery which is starting to go brown on the leaves.  No idea what to do with that, as I do NOT like celery, so using it in soups isn’t an option.  We’re only growing it because G randomly grabbed some off the shelf several months ago when we were buying plants for the garden.  I don’t recommend this; not very frugal to grow a plant you don’t even like!

It was so warm last weekend, I thought I would delay putting the bubble wrap up until this weekend.  Now I’m wishing I hadn’t, of course, as we could use that extra warmth this week.  I really need to buy some curtain rings so the door curtain opens & closes properly.  I stitched 1 door snake on Sunday night, but it took ages (a lot longer than I anticipated!), so I’ll get to the 2^nd one sometime in the next few days.

We’ve done very well with the heating so far, I’m quite pleased.  It’s barely been on, only once or twice for a few minutes just to take the chill off.  Last night I thought I would get lots of grief from G, but I was proud that he didn’t even mention it.  The house DID feel much warmer than the thermostat was reading, so maybe some of this winter-proofing has actually worked?  I think a big help in being ‘thrifty’ with the heating is to START LOW.  Set your thermostat lower than you think is comfortable – you might be pleasantly surprised that you’re not cold.  It’s much harder to get used to a colder temperature once you start off warm, so better to start low and increase in tiny increments.  Last winter, we lived with it on 19.5C in the evenings – last night I put it down to 17C and it never kicked on! (no idea if these are real temps, as temps in our flat vary widely based on the room you are in.  19C in the hallway may be 21C in another room!).  I’m not saying we’d be happy with it on 17C every night, but it’s a start.