Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Sorry Maria, I have no idea what the actual temperature has been here. My problem has been being kept awake at night by the cold in spite of extra bedding. This really has to be the year when we organise double glazing! I expect it to be cold outside in winter, but not in my own bedroom!

Poor Frances!

I was greatly consoled by an old electric heat pad during the snowy weeks. Until... I snuggled down and caught a distinct aroma of burning. I leaped from my bed and isolated the pad before it burst into flames. How I miss it now!

My sister sent me some fluffy pink spotted bedsocks as a consolation. Think Mr Blobby! I have been sleeping in a soft old hooded top. Whatever I once confessed in a "What Do You Wear In Bed" thread no longer applies.

Fjgrogan wrote:Sorry Maria, I have no idea what the actual temperature has been here. My problem has been being kept awake at night by the cold in spite of extra bedding. This really has to be the year when we organise double glazing! I expect it to be cold outside in winter, but not in my own bedroom!

When we get to the farm in 3 weeks time it will be about 5ºC and damp in the house; we use electric blankets (which you can still but in "Comet" type shops.) until we get the place warmed up. Thoroughly recommended

Fjgrogan wrote:Sorry Maria, I have no idea what the actual temperature has been here. My problem has been being kept awake at night by the cold in spite of extra bedding. This really has to be the year when we organise double glazing! I expect it to be cold outside in winter, but not in my own bedroom!

Reminds me of the time I was renting an upper room in an old house in Reading.
Morning frost inside the window, and an electric wall heater than probably warmed the wall more than it did the room. I had read somewhere that tramps used newspaper to ward off the cold so I put it under the sheet, only to find that newsprint rubs off and ruins the sheet and the matress.
How I longed for a thick Housey Coat to go on top as a raincoat did´nt do the job.

Last week I met with my son, who lives in the North of Sweden, and he says that Swedes are amazed at how the "Brits" deal with the cold. His house is at a constant 24ºC compared to his brother´s struggle to get his 1930´s London flat above 21ºC, and he wears many layers of clothes. It makes him look well fed, but he is warm.
Part of his job involves taking soil samples from the bottom of frozen ponds, but the only time he really felt the cold was when the ice at the edge was thinner than he had imagined and he got a boot full of cold water.
Although he has only been there a few years, he is quite used to the cold, even to the extent of preferring it to the variable UK climate.

sejintenej wrote:

NEILL THE NOTORIOUS wrote:I am refusing to answer the RUDE E mails I am getting from my "Swiss" Son (Been there 25 years !) who describes anything less than a Metre as "Piddling " !!

Just tell him that the metre (as in distance measurement) is the result of gross incompetence. The idea was that it would be a specific fraction of the distance from Paris to the North Pole but they got that distance WRONG!

Even the ancient Egyptians were more accurate in calculating the circumference of the world!

OTOH the Swiss do make pretty Cuckoo clocks

Actually the Cuckoo Clock originated in the Black Forest, in Germany !

Orson Welles, in the "Third Man" quoted the Swiss as having invented the Cuckoo Clock, as being the only thing that they had achieved after 200 years of Peace !

NEILL THE NOTORIOUS wrote:

sejintenej wrote:
OTOH the Swiss do make pretty Cuckoo clocks

Actually the Cuckoo Clock originated in the Black Forest, in Germany !

Orson Welles, in the "Third Man" quoted the Swiss as having invented the Cuckoo Clock, as being the only thing that they had achieved after 200 years of Peace !

You mean to tell me that the Swiss couldn't even get THAT right!?

Of course they were into banking in a big way until their (then) third largest bank collapsed about 12 years ago. Even RBS couldn't make as big a hash of it as those guys.

jhopgood wrote: Last week I met with my son, who lives in the North of Sweden, and he says that Swedes are amazed at how the "Brits" deal with the cold. His house is at a constant 24ºC compared to his brother´s struggle to get his 1930´s London flat above 21ºC, and he wears many layers of clothes. It makes him look well fed, but he is warm..

I don't know abpout Sweden but TRIPLE glazing was a requirement in Finland at the time when the concept of double glazing started to be considered in Britain. I suspect they use dry inert gas like perhaps nitrogen instead of the damp toom air between the panes as we have.
Buy a window or door in France and it comes already fitted inside its frame - it IS draftproof from the start but in England doors come separate from the frame and could have any sort of (or no) draft-proofing.

jhopgood wrote:Part of his job involves taking soil samples from the bottom of frozen ponds, but the only time he really felt the cold was when the ice at the edge was thinner than he had imagined and he got a boot full of cold water.
.

Potentially very dangerous to get wet under those conditions, but then he and those he was with know how to deal with such accidents.

Doors and windows are already in their frames nowadays John.

FENSA regulations.

We are triple glazed, double doored and hermetically sealed! about 24 degrees C indoors regardless of the temp outside (even in summer - ugg). My landlord recently swept the place with an infrared camera - to see where any leaks might be.... he clocked our kitchen floor (at the point where the underfloor heating pipes run) at 33 degrees C!! No wonder I need slippers to keep my feet from burning, rather than to keep them warm

I do prefer this weather to British weather - it's far more predictable, cold in the winter, hot in the summer, wet in the autumn & spring!

Mum - have you gone back to turning off the heating at night?? That could be your problem!

sejintenej wrote: The Scottish highlands are more dangerous (in that regard) than the Scandinavian mountains which have lower temperatures
...
6. I suspect that you have a more suitable diet and physical fitness. (I am aware that alcoholism was (?is) a major problem in Finland and that it saps the body of the ability to withstand cold - we are discussing "normal" people).

Not all Brits feel the cold - I had a work colleague who never ever came to the office except in a medium weight suit, shirt and tie etc.; no vest, no overcoat, no gloves, no hat.

I came back from the west coast of Africa (always above say 35ºC) and immediately started working a couple of hundred kilometres north of you, a bit to the west and well above the tree line - in January. There it was warm when it got up to minus 15ºC; I helped teach survival - sleeping in snow holes etc., There were days when I skiied in shorts, boots and gloves and there were days when it was windy brrrrrrr! Looks like you have relatively balmy weather.

- we're not in Scandanavia (according to my husband) - this is Fenno Scandia! And there are no mountains!
- you obviously don't know me.... diet & physical fitness really don't figure in my world I'm not much of a drinker but alcoholism still is a major problem here; and April is the month for mass suicides - after the long winter when people overdose on Sunshine!
- My husband never wears a hat, scarf, gloves or even (recently) a jumper! He does tend to go everywhere in the car and was very put out when I suggested we take a walk on the frozen river with the children - we could only stay a few minutes cos having spent ages wrapping up the baby, the toddler & me, he was too cold....
- at christmas 2001, I was in Australia for a (OB) friend's wedding in Brisbane. On Christmas Day, I was on the Gold Coast - temp +42 degrees C and my H2B was in central Finland with his family - temp -30 degrees C! 70 degrees apart

Maria, our heating has always gone off automatically overnight - I only switched it back on every night when you were here because I knew you weren't used to all our cold draughts! It is the sound of the boiler switching on which normally wakes me up in the mornings.

Fjgrogan wrote:Maria, our heating has always gone off automatically overnight - I only switched it back on every night when you were here because I knew you weren't used to all our cold draughts! It is the sound of the boiler switching on which normally wakes me up in the mornings.

That would be why you are cold at night, then.....

Don't most people have the heating OFF at night? Except of course for a lovely heated pad AND one of those hotty things you put in the microwave.

midget wrote:Don't most people have the heating OFF at night? Except of course for a lovely heated pad AND one of those hotty things you put in the microwave.

I think Maria is right; if you turn it off at night then the next day you have to expend just as much energy getting the nhouse up to "normal daytime" temperature because even the walls get cooler. Being cooler the walls seem to attract humidity (sometimes some of it from outside depanding on house construction) which makes the house feel even cooler.

We have the heating on all day and night but turn it down a lot at about 9pm until 7am; we feel perfectly warm.

midget wrote: one of those hotty things you put in the microwave.

Those can be dangerous! Apparently the wheaty stuff inside can dry out so much that it smoulders and ignites after too many uses!

I think the instructions tell you to sprinkle them with water after so many uses (10?)

My daughter has what she calls a "monthly rabbit"