Cold Vicarage Tips: Scarves

The Vicarage is cold. My feet are numb as I type this at lunchtime as bright Autumn sunshine streams through the windows but fails to warm anything in the house. I have many different techniques for keeping warm – lighting the woodburning stoves, feather lined slippers (not currently on my feet – hence the chilly toes) and gilets amongst them. But the daily essential (even in the summer, I’m sad to say) is a scarf.

The other day I caught this video which gives 25 different options for tying a scarf. I hadn’t realised there were so many. I think I wear a variation on the Basic Loop. How about you?

[HT India Knight]

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Unto Us a Child is Born: Seeing the Words

Following up from watching lots of Handel’s Hallelujah chorus in the form of flash mob YouTube clips over the last couple of weeks, the Vicar nabbed a couple of Messiah clips to encourage folk in church this Sunday. Here is the one that’s not the Hallelujah Chorus – For Unto Us a Child is Born, set to kinetic typography, which helps you to meditate on the words as well as the marvellous music.

Happy Monday. Ours will be mainly spent phoning plumbers (frozen and burst pipes around the Vicarage) and sourcing extra warmth in the form of memory foam topper and electric blanket for Rocky the Vicar’s Apprentice, who has been so cold in the attic that his asthma has been playing up. He sees this as a part of his training for future ministry…

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Lighting the Fire: Autumn in the Vicarage

The Vicar's Wife likes to have warm ankles

So it’s been getting a bit chilly here and we’ve fired up the wood-burning stove 3 or 4 times in the last week. So today I’m sharing a few thoughts about surviving Vicarage cold…

Slippers

We have new slippers in the Vicarage, both me and the Vicar. Warm feet make a huge difference to happiness in a cold house. The slippers of happiness are made by The North Face. Mine are of the bootie variety, and the Vicar has mules.

Warmwear

Let's hope these are long enough...

I am also seriously considering investing in some Marks and Spencer Warmwear. M&S claim that these ‘layering pieces’…’generate heat’ and ‘act as insulation’. I’m a wee bit concerned that they might be a bit short and not tuck into my low rise jeans, thus ensuring  that I have cold kidneys and monumentally failing to keep me properly warm. Too-short t-shirts are the bane of my life in cold weather. I will try them, however, and report back. Unless any of you have tried them already…? I’m 5’10″ btw, so my back is quite long. [HT Cassie]

Scarves

Scarves are essential for warmth and I’m especially pleased with the gorgeous Black Ruffled Skinny one that Icklesis bought me for my birthday this year. Don’t be without one. But you knew that, anyway, didn’t you?

Cats

And finally… work out where the cat is and join her. She knows the warmest place in the house for certain. As you can see, it’s usually in front of the fire.

Ahhh. Toasty.

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Sometimes Vicarage Chill can be Beautiful

The Vicar took this photo of the ice on the inside of the Queen’s bedroom window this morning. There was still ice on the landing window this afternoon. And most of the window cills are drenched with meltwater. And mould, but that’s my housekeeping for you. This picture is pretty though.

Brrr again. But pretty.

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A New Top Tip for Chilly Vicars

The Vicar's study has been 10°C today. Brrr.

Before Christmas, we had a nasty shock from our power supplier, e.on. They wanted to raise our monthly direct debit for gas and electricity by nearly 85%. Although our usage has gone up a bit in the cold weather, we were still in credit with them.

The Vicar had some long discussions with their customer services department, both on the phone and by email, but to no avail. They’ve estimated our usage for the next few months based on the records from when we didn’t live here and the decorators were in, heating the house 24/7.

Although we think they’ve made a bad call, we have to go along with it. It will cause a bit of cash flow trouble in the next couple of months, but once we’ve proved that they’ve made a mistake, it should even out.

The upside of all this irritation is that we went online and switched our tariff, saving another 8% on the charges. The other upside is that the Vicar contacted the diocese about sorting out some loft insulation and they put us onto the excellent Warm Zone team.

Warm Zone is an EU funded initiative operating in selected areas, including ours. They provide advice and can also help out with insulation and other kit if you fall into the fuel poverty bracket, which we do now, since a Vicar’s salary is not what you’d usually have if you lived in a house this size.

So this morning we had a visit from Seema, from Sandwell Warm Zone. She came armed with goodies, including a fancy plug to turn off printers when the computer is switched off, a timer switch, an eco kettle and some low energy light bulbs. Most importantly, she brought an energy sensor, which she’s lent us for the next few weeks. It monitors electricity usage so you can see the power used by each appliance in the house as it’s switched on. I’m a little scared about what it’s going to reveal, but it will be useful.

And we’re on the list for loft insulation and possibly cavity wall insulation in the modern extension part of the house. There’s a bit of a waiting list, so we’re not sure when that will happen. As we’re not in the lowest income bracket, we’re going to have to pay for their services. But only £49. We’re hoping that will make a big difference, especially to Happy, the Vicar’s Apprentice, whose room is in the uninsulated attic. It’s so cold up there at the moment that we’ve taken pity on him and brought him down to sleep in the spare bedroom a floor below.

So if you’re in Aberdeen, Birmingham, Devon, Gateshead, Hull, Kirklees, London, Newcastle, North Staffordshire, North Tyneside, Northumberland, Nottingham, Sandwell, South Tyneside or Swindon, give them a call. It won’t do any harm and you could find yourself cheaply warmer.

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More Shed

The Vicar pointed me to a better picture of his glorious shed, this time taken from the garage door end.

The Vicar is very proud of his handiwork

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Keeping warm – the best way

You’ve probably gathered from previous posts that I think the best way to keep warm in a Victorian vicarage is to install wood burning stoves. These were definitely the top investment that we made on moving into our arctic home. When we visited soon after the Vicar was appointed to the job, we realised just how cold the house was. We could see damp creeping up the fireplace walls, and parishioners talked about shivering their socks off when they visited.

The Vicar’s mum and my parents had both had stoves installed in the past few years, and we enjoyed their warmth very much. The eco-friendly nature also appealed. As did the prospect of possibly heating ourselves for free by scavenging the wood.

We don

God willing, we would like to stay here for a good few years, so we’ve spent a lump of savings on buying and installing two Neria Bohemia 60 stoves. The selection of the stoves was not that difficult. When we went to the shop, this was the only one of the right size that they had two of! We also like their rather modern looking design and so far they have been wonderful – practical and attractive.

Yesterday we had both of them fired up – the one in the red room, our tidy public room, because the Vicar had a bereaved lady who came over to plan her father’s funeral, and the green family room one cos that’s how we keep the family warm. The Vicar lays the fires at lunchtime so they are ready to go whenever we need them.

So far we’ve only had to pay for matches. We’ve been using packing paper from our move and shreddings from the study at the base of the fire, chopped up pallets and twigs from the garden and churchyard for kindling and then heavier logs once the heart of the fire is going. The logs have been sourced from all over: local people we know who have been chopping trees down (sometimes with the Vicar’s help), building sites (with permission of course) and the Vicar’s golf course. The Vicar tells me that this justifies the cost of his club membership.

A hidden benefit of using wood as a fuel is the view I get from my kitchen window when the Vicar is chopping the logs. Very hunter gatherer. Getting them installed was a bit of a palaver. I’ll blog on that another time, but for now I’ll show you what they look like in my two downstairs rooms (unlit, cos I took the photos this morning) and you can enjoy the toastiness.

This room looks a lot cosier when the fire is lit

Cool ash bucket, eh? Just got it from Ikea the other day

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Some more thoughts on warmth

I've not yet worn my hat indoors...

Cold vicarages seem to be a hot topic for discussion. Since I posted last week I’ve also remembered a couple of other techniques that we use to keep the frostbite at bay.

• Our electric blanket. Not yet on the bed but absolutely essential for later in the season. With cold feet I cannot get to sleep at all. The poor man’s alternative is the good old hot water bottle. My mother has bought a large selection to be set aside for visitors. The children like them too, especially when they have covers in the shape of racoons.
• My teasmade. I have a hot cup of tea every morning (Roiboos, without milk, so much less hassle than having to fetch semi skimmed). This is also a great encouragement to prayer and bible reading. What else to do whilst tea-drinking first thing? It’s sometimes a battle to switch off the Today programme, though.

Quite a few commentators have mentioned the ‘sell the vicarage and buy something warm and modern’ option. This is appealing in many ways but also has its downsides. The expectation is that a warm modern vicarage is a pleasure to live and work in and doesn’t cost a bomb to heat or to maintain. However, not all modern vicarages are chosen well – it seems that some are poorly located away from the church or community, and houses that are not specifically designed as vicarages can lack rooms of the right size or configuration.

In our diocese cold vicarages have been identified as a source of clergy stress and there are plans afoot for double glazing. In the meantime, please continue to share your warmth tips.

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Keeping warm in the Vicarage – some irreverent verse

We had loads of visitors this weekend. It was great fun, though slightly bonkers. As ever, my Dad wrote some verse to commemorate the occasion. This one is about our first gas bill…

Our new Vicar’s first gas bill,

Would really take some beating.

So rather than face the bankruptcy court,

He turned off the central heating.

They shiver now at the Vicarage,

And wrap up really well.

Whenever (in winter) I visit

I long for the fires of Hell.

The poetic licence forbade mentioning our very toasty and mesmorising wood burning stoves, which stave off the longing for Hell… We hope.

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