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!