This weather is starting to get on my wick a little bit.

Yes. Deep-frozen veg and deep-frozen chili beans for tea tonight. No big deal, you might think, but these were deep-frozen vegetables and beans from out of tins. And when your tins of food are freezing then you know that you really do have problems.

Not much water today either. It's becoming harder and harder to melt the solid ice that is in the water butts. We are at the stage where I'm beginning to think that the next time we have a really decent day's solar energy, I'll take the halogen heater outside and use that to melt the ice.

So I spent a major part of the day in the lean-to. I've stacked some of the wood so much better, moved some bricks outside, moved some stones upstairs, shovelled some bits and pieces out of the way, made up three large containers of wood for up here, and that's given me plenty of space to move stuff from out of the house. But you'll be amazed just how quickly the space is filled up, and things don't look all that much different in the house either, which is really rather sad. Anyway, there's tons of old waste paper and old waste cardboard so if I have a huge bonfire once the weather improves (whenever that might be) it'll make the place look emptier (I hope).

I've also done a bit more on the ceiling. I was going to have a really good crack at it but Rosemary rang up and we had a big long chat instead. It's her first winter living here, and she needs encouragement. Luckily she decided on moving here more-or-less full-time to sell her old rear-wheel drive saloon and buy a 4x4. She'll certainly benefit from that decision. 

Confronted with the deep-frozen tinned food, I'm now moving more and more stuff up here. The washing-up stuff is now in the attic (the sink in the verandah has been frozen up for over a week anyway) and so all of the crockery, cutlery and saucepans will be staying up here. It's pointless taking them all downstairs to wash, leaving them there overnight and then bringing them back up here the following evening. It's the coldest winter for decades, apparently, and no-one expected it to go on for as long as this. Consecutive minuses in double figures for well over a week - something that's unheard-of.