Christmas Letter 2010

 

Well, here it is. My Christmas Letter for 2010

And so it begins…

The British Isles are in the middle of a big freeze which looks as though it will continue well into the next week. Heavy snow has fallen but Northamptonshire has largely escaped with just a thin covering. It is however very cold.

I tried to pull a leek out of the garden to put into a soup but I ended up with just the green leaves and the rest of the leek still stubbornly frozen in the ground. On my way back into the house I stamped my foot so as not to walk snow into the house but slipped and went flying into the house.

Luckily, I just managed to keep my balance. As I shut the door I noticed long icicles above the back door and window. In all my time living here I’ve never seen icicles as big as that before.

The next day as I dared to leave my warmer room upstairs and go downstairs to make a cup of tea I noticed that there was water dripping inside the house just in front of the back window. I got bowls positioned under the drips and then went upstairs to decide what to do next.

Plan A was to check the gutter. I decided to take a sturdy wooden chair outside, climb on top of it and then peer at the gutter on the low roof over the back window.

Plan A was put into effect: the was chair carried down from the bathroom, I noticed for the first time the great slab of shiny ice on the back door step that was doubt responsible for sending me flying the previous day and managed to step over it. I carefully positioned the chair in the snow and climbed on it.

I was far too short.

I couldn’t see anything other than some very dramatic icicles that hung like sharks’ teeth not from the guttering but from a wooden sill underneath the guttering. Drops of water were dripping from each of them.

So Plan A failed and I decided as water continued to drip into the bowls to go on to plan B.

Plan B was to get the step ladders up from the cellar so that I could peer into the gutter.

Plan B was put into effect: the step ladders were carried up from the cellar. Again I noticed the great lump of shiny ice on the back door and managed to step over it. I carefully positioned the stepladder in the snow and climbed nervously up.

By the second step I was already trembling from not having a head for heights, but somehow I got to the top and peered into the gutter. It was full of ice. The section of the gutter on the side away from the downpipe had ice right up to the very top which then gently sloped away in the direction of the downpipe.

This build up of ice was the fault of the combination boiler pipe which constantly drips water onto this roof. Below its outlet pipe it had built up an ice sheet of thick glacial proportions.

So Plan B had failed as I was still no closer to stopping the water from dripping rhythmically into the bowls. So it was now time to go onto plan C.

Plan C was wildly ambitious. It was to climb up the stepladders with a bucket of water and to then pour it into the gutter to melt the ice.

Plan C was put into effect. Again I noticed the great lump of shiny ice on the back door and managed to step over it. I found the bucket. It had been a quarter full of rainwater now it was a quarter full of ice and frozen leaves. By this time it was snowing again. I turned the bucket upside down and was amazed that the block of ice was freed so easily. I’d expected it to put up a fight at least for an hour or so. I then stepped back inside over the great lump of shiny ice on the back doorstep, passed the steadily dripping water that was sploshing into the bowls and half filled the bucket with hot water from the tap. Soon, I was outside again having almost forgotten about the ice in the back step. I carefully repositioned the stepladder in the snow and began to climb nervously upwards.

By the second step I remembered that I still didn’t have a head for heights, by the third I realised that not having a head for heights while trying to carry a bucket of water up a stepladder does not make for a very good combination. I never got beyond step three.

So Plan C failed as I was still no closer to stopping the water merrily dripping into the bowls and it was time to go onto plan D.

Plan D was brilliant. It was sheer genius even if I do say so myself. It was to go upstairs to the bathroom, open the window and then using the bucket to pour warm water down the slope of the roof and into the gutter to melt the ice.

Plan D was put into effect. I half filled the bucket held the window open and then poured it over the glacial terrain. The water trickled merrily down roof but to my surprise instead of melting the ice in the gutter the water simply sloshed straight over the top. Undaunted, I refilled a second bucket and tried aiming it in a different direction. The result was the same. Water just splashed straight over the gutter. So then I tried a third bucket followed by a fourth. The warm water was also making no impact on the roof’s glacier. Still I reasoned, by the time I get downstairs to check it out by climbing the ladder, the warm water should have melted the ice in the gutter by then.

I’d only got as far as the kitchen before I realised that something was now seriously wrong.

Plan D had failed, and it had failed big time. Water was now pouring from a number of places from the ceiling of the small room next to the kitchen. It seemed that some idiot had been pouring bucket after bucket of water onto the roof above exacerbating the leak.

Plan E was to mop up and to place extra bowls beneath the drips.

Plan E took quite a while to implement. There were clothes that had been drying on the radiator which were now soaked. My wellies on the mat were also rapidly filling up with grubby looking water. Half an hour later I’d got it all sorted out, and that’s when I opened the backdoor to go out to check the guttering.

Big mistake!

Water had somehow found its way onto the top of the door and as I opened it an icy shower fell upon my head. Despite this I still remembered to step over the block of ice on the doorstep and managed to clamour up to the top of the ladders holding gingerly onto the wall as the nearby sharks teeth very visibly lengthening as water ran along their length.

It was as I feared as I peered into the gutter I realised it was still full of ice and that the water I had poured down the roof had simply flowed right over the top of it.

So Plan E had failed as water was still finding new and exciting ways to drip down onto the carpet and to splash onto the window sill.

Plan F was bold. Plan F was to take a kettle of water of boiling water and then to pour it into the gutter where the ice was thickest.

Plan F was tricky to implement. The kettle seemed to take an age to boil. Then I had to open the back door, dodge the latest drips, step over the growing block of slippery ice on the back step, dodge the drips from the icicles and then climb up a slippery aluminium stepladder which some fool seemed to have recently drenched with water, and which was quickly turning into ice, whilst holding a kettle full of boiling water in a snow storm!

Easy!

I gingerly reached the top of the ladder and this time I poured the water very slowly before returning to repeat the exercise, again and again and again.

Happily plan F worked! The drips in the room slowed and then stopped completely and the bowls which I’d emptied remained completely dry throughout the night.

Soon there was only one drip left in that room: me!

But oh what happiness!

Now all I have to do is dry out my wellies, rewash the clothes that had been drenched by dirty water, and then dry out the carpet. I’m hoping it will be dry by the time before the teenager gets back from university for the Christmas break.

Which now leads on to me explaining about the shabby Christmas card I’ve just decided not to put in the post for you.

You see plan A was to…

Happy Christmas