urocyon

OK, I'm feeling pretty silly now.

It's been relatively cold here the past few days--as in, it's been hovering right around freezing, with more expected the rest of the week--and the house has been staying chilly. I usually run hot rather than cold, and dress like a beach bum around the house, but I've been huddling into yoga pants and a sweater and basically keeping a cup of tea going all the time--and have still not been feeling warm. Good reminder to drink more of the delicious hojicha I picked up, though. ;)

When I went to clean the (unheated) goldfish tank earlier, the water was much colder than I expected--with the added heat from the lights, it usually stays stable near 75F/24C in the winter, and this afternoon the water was 68F/20C. With a big (double-glazed!) bay window, that room isn't usually the warmest, but when I took a thermometer in there the air temperature was 62F/17C with the thermostat set to 72F/22C (turned up some in hopes it would help). Not great. I set up a space heater in there, especially since there are also a few tropicals in that tank. :-|

We have a combi boiler which is only a couple of years old, and of course I started thinking "oh crap, there's something expensive wrong with it, just in time for a cold snap!" It's never had a problem keeping up with not-actually-that-cold weather before. We've had plenty of hot water from the faucets, but I took a peek at the pressure gauge to make sure it didn't need more water let in again.

No, the boiler pressure was fine. But it has separate temperature controls for the hot water and the heating, and somebody had apparently knocked into the radiator system control knob at some point. It was turned almost all the way down, to 113F/45C. I turned it back up to 158F/70C.

Yep, it's already feeling warmer in here. *facepalm*

And I'd been cold for days without checking the boiler.

It's a good thing I did remember to take cash with me, and try to get money out of an ATM with the new debit card before using it at the checkout. Surprise, surprise: I couldn't remember the PIN!

You remember that kid who never seemed to be able to get into her locker in school? That was me. At least nobody's making fun of me to my face when I have this kind of lapse now. ;)

I blame the dyscalculia.

I tried entering every PIN I could remember, and didn't hit the right one. Not so usefully, I did recall the one for the other debit card I did not have along. So I just requested that HSBC send me a new one, while I was thinking about it.

Even more frustrating, and darkly funny? When I picked up the phone to call Ingvar after I got home, I started off by punching in what I'm pretty sure was the right PIN instead of his mobile number! *facepalm*

But, I had £40 cash, so we do have some groceries. With some leftover spaghetti sauce in the fridge, tonight we're getting (corn noodle) lasagne with lots of spinach and ricotta, and some salad on the side.