Sainte Agnès

We have had a pretty cold winter this year and I have been monitoring the weather to the point of obsession. During mid January the temperature in St. André plummeted to minus 12 for a few days and for several days it never got above 0 during the day. M. Gosset checked the boiler and alerted us to the fact that we didn't have much fioul left so we had 500l delivered on 18 Jan. Given the cold weather and the fact we had not been to the house in 3 months we knew a visit at least to check all was ok was necessary. I was extremely worried that the pipes were frozen or that the radiators had burst like in 2012 so was a bit on edge. When we arrived at 11ish I was greatly relieved to find everything ok. The radiators were on low and the kitchen was at about 6º and the bedroom at 9º. I switched up the boiler and we waited a bit before gently opening the water valve. All seems to be ok. Jules got a wonderful fire going very quickly and the house started to warm up. Although it is always colder here than at home by at least 5º since we have insulated half the house I never feel cold which I can do at 19º at home. Not sure why this should be. The sun started shining and in Agnès's room in was lovely and warm. We did a few chores including assembling a new armchair that we bought from Ikea the night before.  It looks lovely in front of the fire so much so that I am going to get another one.

We then went off to the Etape Charollaise and we were in for a treat. For starters there was a huge portion of spinach canelloni with bechamel sauce, the pot au feu, cheese and to finish it all off tiramisu! It was a really big lunch for 13euros.

We decided to go back home, chuck another log on the fire and the go out for a walk as it was lovely and sunny. As we passed Fanny's house she came out and we chatted. She confirmed that it had really been minus 12 last week and that they had had a frozen mains water pipe but they managed to defrost it before it caused any damage. I feel we have been incredibly lucky this year. We should have until Thursday of cold weather but only down to minus 5 and warmer in the day before it climbing to the giddy heights of 10º.















We walked up to the grotte. Today, January 21st is Sainte Agnès day so our little Agnès was particularly happy.

We had not really planned on staying over, partly because I assumed the worst or at the very least that it would be much too cold but actually it was nice to be here and so we decided to stay. We were a little unprepared in that I had not brought any food but luckily last time we were here I had bought some soup so we had that for dinner. Thank goodness lunch had been so copious. We decided to all sleep in the downstairs bedroom as it is the warmest room at 16º by 21h! It is the first time we have slept on there since the flood in the summer.



I am writing this at 8h on Sunday morning with the others still asleep. We are all very cosy. We have managed to scrape together 3euros so we can get some croissants from the baker in a bit. He is still there and Fanny said he is doing pizzas on Fri night so we must try that next we come after work. We will probably leave shortly after breakfast as Sainte Agnès has homework to do but it will certainly not be another 3 months before we come back this time.