Tuesday, May 12, 2009

It's getting cold....

Brrr... it is getting cold here! While it is heating up on your side of the world it is getting colder on the southern hemisphere! And we are not liking it! The peak hours of the day are still nice and warm, between 15C-20C/50F-68F but in the mornings and evenings it drops already to 0C-5C/32F-41F. And our houses are not build here with insulation, so it feels even colder in house!! Our house has only underfloor heating, but that is not enough, so we are warming the house with those gas heaters on wheels (with a gas bottle in the back). And I roll it from here to there, depends in which part of the house we are. It warms sufficient, but the rest of the house is still chilly... yikes!

We need to get our fire place started soon, but Dirk is traveling and I don't dare to start that fire place on my own. It has not been used yet, and if this goes as everything else we used for the first time, it will not go well. So I rather have my hubby here to do it. So I can stand on the side with the fire extinguisher (which I should go and buy, because we don't have one!) In SA people don't sweep the chimneys, I don't know why but it is not done here, so what if there is a bird nest or something else in there?? Living in a different country gives you all these situations that you are not prepared for, so starting a fire is not as simple as it sounds!

This is how the girls go to school in the morning, waiting for the bus in warm tights, fuzzy boots and a body warmer. When they come back from school everything is peeled off again.

Living in South Africa feels a lot colder than I expected!! But then from 1-3 pm it is nice and sunny, warm in the sun and you can sit outside with a t-shirt on. I change about 3 times a day. In the morning a warm sweater and socks, then I peel it off again around 11-noon. And then put it back on again at 4 pm.

Another thing which comes with winter here, is no rain for the coming 6 months, so it will become really dusty and dry. We have this red dust everywhere, in every nook and cranny. Glad I am having a full-time housekeeper because she will be busy the winter season with dusting, mopping and sweeping.... And we need to moisturize our skin, thick layers of body cream otherwise my skin will look like parchment paper. It keeps us busy....

Have a good day!
Mireille

2 comments:

Mandy said...

Now you know what I mean when I say that winter here feels warmer than in UK!!! I would recommend an oil heater as they are cheap to buy and very effective and much safer.

Gas is hard to find sometimes as Jo'burg runs out of gas often. In my experience, wood was expensive and it only served to smoke our house out, not actually warm it up!!

Leah Maya Benjamin said...

sorry but we need to keep the little bit of warm weather we have had otherwise we would send some to you, although some other states would probabaly love to trade for a bit. Reminds me of living in guatemala, with hard cold floors no heat and no rain in the winter, but that made it nice there. other then when it actually got 41 at night, thats a bit nippy.

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