So it's going to take a looooong time to get all the competition prizes sent out. I did the first 25 tonight and it took me about 2 hours and then I looked down the list to see how many more parcels I would be sending out and it's over 100 more. Admittedly those of you further down the list will be getting smaller prizes (could just be a signed leaflet or programme, I am afraid, there are so many of you, though am going to get rid of a few of my videos - from my collection, not of me - so you never know what you'll end up with). But suffice to say that I am going to have to do these in dribs and drabs and may end up in my own financial ruin. But I don't care if I have to move out on to the rotten-bread-and-sick covered streets as long as I am helping the children. Charidee is my life. And despite me cursing my rash decision to reward you all at about midnight tonight I am also very impressed by the numbers of you who donated. And if you didn't and you read this regularly then you should be ashamed of yourself (though secretly I am glad of your meanness/poverty because of all the work you have saved me, you Scrooges - every time you read Warming Up without donating to charidee a fairy dies).
After yesterday's entry, Estelle left
this link on the guest book. I managed to get up to about day 13 before I asked myself, "What am I doing?" I wonder if the bread/sick is a similar experiment. Maybe it was the experimenter who was sick at his own handiwork. Mind you the bread's deterioration, though interesting is nothing like as disgusting as what you'll see if you dare look at that site. The internet is a ridiculous thing.
My new boiler is going to be fitted from tomorrow, so it's the last few days of being without effective heating. The old boiler has been heating my water, but seemed to be stuck on that and the pilot light would go out once the water was hot. The radiators warmed up for a while, but then would obviously go off. Tonight, I discovered a bit too late that the central heating seems to work, provided that I turn it to off on the display and just have the hot water on. Which isn't an ideal scenario, but it would have been good to realise this three weeks ago when I was freezing my arse off. I might even have tried to get through the winter with this arrangement, saving me thousands of pounds for the new system (or at least postponing that time). But I am glad really, cos I am looking forward to my new combi-boiler and that cobbled together arrangement does feel like it would be wasting energy. Though one engineer who came to my house a few years ago told me that it is actually more efficient to leave your hot water tank and radiators on all the time, as it uses up more energy to heat up the tank from cold every day than it does just to keep it at the top temperature (and similarly for you radiators). I could never bring myself to believe this was true and have my heating on a timer, but can anyone confirm or deny the claims of this maverick engineer? Not that it matters so much now because I won't have a water tank as of Wednesday, but I'd be interested to know. Especially if it's true for the central heating too. This year would be the year to find out as as a reward for buying my boiler from then British Gas are giving me free gas (up to £800) for the next year. I am tempted to leave my central heating on all the time, even over the summer, just to make the most of this offer, even though I know it would be bad for the world. But if something is free then I find it very hard to resist it, even if I have to spend the summer walking around in my pants and put on electric fans all over the house. It's free heat and I am determined to make the most of it. Except my natural suspicious nature makes me worry that there will be some loophole (you only get the money back at the end of the year) or something that I have to do in order to qualify that they accidentally on purpose forget to tell me about. So don't worry, I will use my energy responsibly. Oh please let them install it quickly!
