Snow On Snow

[poliphilo]

Maybe this'll stop us dreaming of a white Christmas.

Tony Robinson's timely series about historic climate change took us to Greenland to moralise over the Norse settlers who were driven out by the medieval mini-ice age.  Their mistake was wanting to be too civilised.  If they'd given up farming and reverted to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of their Inuit neighbours they'd have been fine.

Odi's central heating has gone phut- and her landlord says there's nothing he can do. Peter thinks this is racism; I think it's just landlords. We've lent them a couple of electric heaters and told them to contact their Home Office minder.

We were planning to go down to Kent for Christmas. It  now seems very unlikely that we will. It's been snowing all morning. Snow on snow, snow on snow.

I just trudged up the road to buy kibble for the in-laws' fat little dog.  We don't have seasonal food in stock- what with having planned to spend Christmas away- so I dropped by the butchers in the airy hope that he might be giving away unsold turkeys. He wasn't. In fact he had very little in his shop. What he did have was a clutch of Bury black puddings- the nation's best. I bought one- and I'm going to serve it for lunch with eggs, apple sauce and (a seasonal treat that was demonstrated for us last night by the BBC's Hairy Bikers)  fondant potatoes  

Comments

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Here in "the most liberal state in the union", landlords have to provide heat from September 15th through June 15th. The daytime temperature has to be at least 72 degrees F., and the nighttime temperature has to be at least 68 degrees. In summer, if the apartment gets hotter than 85 degrees, the landlord has to provide for cooling as well, down to at least 80 degrees. This is true of apartments that are rented as "heated". There are other apartments rented for a lesser amount where the tenant provides their own heat and cooling. I always preferred those, because 68 nighttime degrees is too cold for me, and I like it warmer than the average person. In summer I only turn on the air conditioning during a genuine heat wave. If a landlord fails in his obligation, there is a hot line phone number direct to the Mayor's office where complaints can be made. These complaints are investigated within 24 hours.
What a shame that a young mother with a small child or for that matter probably some older people or disabled people might have to wait up to a week to get their heating fixed!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's good to have legislation like that in place.

Peter contacted the Home Office and they made representations to the landlord- and the heat is now back on. It seems the law over here is similar to yours- and the landlord- or someone in the landlord's office- was simply ignoring it.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Hoorah! Yay, Home Office! Boo, Landlord-who-ignores-the-law!