Saturday – Reflecting on the Past

It was a weekend in December, 1998 (a while ago, I know but bear with me). Ice was on the pavement, and there was a hint of snow in the air. In fact Christmas time was only around the corner. Jane and I were nicely ensconced in our little house in Hove, huddling together to keep warm. Our central heating had packed up, and we didn't have any heaters to warm us up. It was a weekend, and we couldn't get our British Gas engineer out until Monday, so we resigned ourselves to freezing in the house. Eventually we resorted to chopping up our dining room furniture, and burning it in the fireplace to keep warm. We felt a little like some squatters dressed in big coats, and burning furniture to keep warm.

Winter is here with a vengeance. When I say winter I'm probably not accurately creating a picture for all of you. When it isn't raining there isn't a cloud in the sky. With so little cloud cover (I could explain the reasons there aren't many clouds in southern West Australia – it's all to do with humidity, and elevation of the land, and prevailing winds – but I don't think I'll bore you any more than normal) when it isn't raining, and the sun isn't shining – some people know that as night time, the temperature plummets to 4 or 5 degrees.

During the day, with the sun shining it is positively warm – rivalling the temperature in Brighton recently, but the nights are not pleasant if you don't have anything warm to wear, or any heating in the house. In the apartment in Scarborough there is a very clever function on the air conditioner that blows hot air when it is necessary. I can stay as warm as I like there.

As you imagine, the beach house in Golden Bay isn't full of many mod-cons (well, actually there are no mod-cons). There is a TV, and that's about it, but is that a mod-con now a days? One of the conveniences that is missing was any sort of gas or electric heater. It's been alright up until now, but Friday night it was very cold.

I trundled back to Golden Bay last night after work, and, after stopping at "The Lucky Catch" for Fish and Chips, I bowled up at the beach house clutching my supper and bags. After eating my Snapper, I sat there shivering, looking at a cast iron pot bell stove in the lounge area. I thought, I'll bite the bullet as I hadn't seen any wood anywhere, but then I remembered I hadn't looked in the garage under the house. After fighting through the jungle, and eventually getting the lock to work (it hadn't been opened in a long time).

Amazingly, in the garage was a large pile of timber, so I loaded up a couple of armfuls of the wood, and stumbled back into the house. Luckily it was quite dry and lit really easily, as there wasn't any sort of firelighter. I checked out the wood I was throwing in the top of the fire, and it was old chairs, and tables. That took me back to the winter in Hove. I hope that they were actually supposed to be burned, and not being stored for any other reason.