Monday, January 08, 2007

Some Like It Hot

We got our electricity bill today. It was in three figures. More than four hundred pounds. What do you think of that then? That is some giant carbon footprint.

So what do you think we are up to then? Rearing battery chicks? No. Running a cannabis farm? No. Taking in washing? Yes. But not that much.

There can only be one reason for such a huge bill and that is Pearlie. Pearlie likes to be cosy and warm and no harm in that at her age. But she uses all at the same time:

· Oil-fired central heating

· A Super Ser (gas heater)

· Two electric fires

The heat in her mobile home would make a normal person faint. I’m convinced it killed her dog. I cannot sit there with her for more than thirty minutes at a time before getting multiple hot flushes. The place is like a furnace. She even keeps the heat on in the summer time. If it gets too warm she throws open the kitchen door and you can see the heat haze shimmering out.

My mother visited her the other evening.

There’s some heat in here Pearlie.

D’ye think so? I feel no great heat.


She keeps an electric fire in her bedroom... Despite this she always takes a hot water bottle and there used to be an electric blanket too but Bert banned it on health and safety grounds. She now puts on two cardigans and a head scarf before retiring.

Bert had a word with her about the electricity bill. She denied it had anything to do with her. She said,

It’s youse ones! Always burning lights. I see them lights on all the time and many the time I thocht to mysel’ them boys must have plenty of money with niver turning them lights off!

7 comments:

Sandra said...

Pearlie must be a coul-rife being if she is burning all that heat. Or maybe she is the one with the cannabis farm? You never can tell what the OAPs get up to these days...

Ronni said...

I am so spoiled! When I was a child, first in England and then in Canada, I was never warm in the winter. My skin would be all dry and cracked. My hands would be purple. My feet were never warm. Left to my own devices, I'd have been just like Pearlie. I always equate cold with poverty, and so must be warm in the winter.

Jim, growing up in the heat of west Texas, equates summer het with deprivation, and so needs to be very cold. Basically, he gets his way in the summer, and I wear fleece in the house, and I get my way in the winter. As we have an all-electric house, the power company takes a lot of our money.

Can Pearlie not get a break? Here, older and/or disabled people get a lower rate.

Nelly said...

I don't begrudge Pearlie her warmth for she is coul-rife and she probably does equate cold with poverty and now she likes living in the lap of luxury.

I just hate giving the power company the money. Pearlie could turn it down a notch or two and still be toasty warm. But who is going to deny an 80 year old?

There is some extra money around for pensioners in the winter but it is only a token amount.

Just have to bite the bullet I suppose - and check out her extra curricular hobbies!

Ronni said...

Can you sneak over there and turn it down a bit without her noticing? I do that with Jim in the summer. Just bump the knob a degree or two. I hate to give the power company any more than is absolutely necessary.

Anonymous said...

tried to comment earlier but it wouldnt let me...bugger. anyway, not sure when i'll make it over, got made redundant today so need to secure another job before any plans are drawn...sorry. though believe me, i could really do with a couple days chillin out.
hope your all swell
mikeyboy x

Mudflapgypsy said...

Take the knob off and put it back on a few notches lower. Pearlie might never know. Get an electrician to put a current limiting device in the 'lectric fires.
All this subterfuge, terrible, eh?

Nelly said...

Thanks for the advice folks. I may give some of that a go.