Wordless Wednesday: Walking the Towpath January 2009

Winter's on its Way

We've been having quite mild weather for the time of year. We're in December now and last year we had plenty of snow and ice, at least it was more than usual for us. But we're still likely to get some severe weather over the coming months. And it could be sooner rather than later. This is what our road looked like one morning last year.

I didn't go out much then, and when I did, I got in the car and let my hubby do the driving. This year it's going to be different. I will still have to take Jade out three times a day. So we'll be getting in some rock salt to stop us slipping on our drive and the pavements on the short distance to the park. Last year there were lots of reports of broken limbs due to falling on the ice. We don't want that to happen to any of us.

Rock salt from a mine in Cheshire is what the Highways Agency and most of the local authorities here use, and I know where we can order some of the same stuff. They use the brown rock salt which is a mite cheaper than the white kind, and they order in bulk, whereas we will only need one or two 10 kilo bags.

I'd recommend anyone with the same concerns to stock up on rock salt now, before the bad weather hits, and everyone is screaming for it.

Thinking of Summer in Winter

This morning I got up to yet another white frost outside. While I shivered I tried to think myself back to the summer, and to other summers in far away places.

Summer outside is glorious, but it's not so good when I come inside. When it's really hot here, the air indoors hangs really heavy. Once a room gets hot it takes a lot to cool it down. At night I move my office desk clip on fan upstairs to my bedside table, and spend half the night turning it on when I'm too hot and off when it has cooled me down too much, because it was so close to me.  What I could do with is a ceiling fan.

When I lived in Singapore, we had ceiling fans in every room. They kept them cool but not too cold. At night we left the fan on its lowest setting and it kept the whole room at the right temperature so we slept through with just a light sheet covering us.

If summers here are going to get hotter with global warming, I might follow the Singapore example and get some ceiling fans fitted. I found a helpful site with pages that tell you all about them. You can find out who makes the best ceiling fans here and see who makes the most efficient and environmentally friendly fans this year.

On other pages you can lean more about: the top selling Minka Aire Hugger Ceiling fans that are so easy to assemble and fix; traditional but quieter Casablanca ceiling fans with 4 speeds for maximum efficiency; the Hunter Classic Original still going strong; the more recently introduced Hunter Hotel Original with a large lamp set below the blades; and plenty of others.

I'm bookmarking the site so that, if and when I'm ready to buy my first ceiling fan, I'll be looking again at the Hansen Wholesale ceiling fans.

Wordless Wednesday - Our Winter Wonderland