I returned to the Mothhouse after two days. With the extra space heater in the bathroom, it seemed reasonable that the water pipes would have thawed.  On the contrary, the cold water in the kitchen was gone now.  Only the warm water in the kitchen remained, and in the bathroom neither the faucet nor the shower worked (same as Monday).  Luckily the cold water in the kitchen returned some minutes after I drew some hot water.  I suppose the two water pipes lie so close that the heat from the hot water melted the ice in the cold water. Evidently none of the other pipes are close enough to benefit from that heat, though.  Sucks, but I guess that’s the way the ice crumbles.

I moved the new (small, expensive) space heater to the last room in any way associated with water, namely the washing room.  I have not moved in with the washing machine yet, so the only thing there is the hot water tank. It is not particularly warm on the outside, but that is supposed to be a good thing.  Still, if there is any room on the ground floor that might possibly be below the freezing point, this would be it.  Particularly the floor, walking on it in thin socks was painful.  (The thick wool socks are amazing insulation. I put them on afterwards.) I placed the heater on the floor and it is still running.  You are not supposed to use them in so small room, but then you are not supposed to let your water pipes freeze either.  And luckily the room is long, so there is nothing even remotely near in front of it.

Even so, I don’t think the problem is the air temperature.  I think the problem is that the ground under the house is frozen, and the pipes go through that frozen foundation without enough insulation.  This may have worked when people used them every day several times a day.  This may be the first time the water has actually stood still during a long period of intense cold.

This seem to be all I write about when I am here.  But the truth is that I kind of like the house, even though it is worse than the one in Nodeland in every way I can think of.  It is older, it is smaller, it is less practical, it has an upper floor instead of a basement, it is not furnished and did not even come with a coat rack.  The location is beautiful, but so far I have only seen it twice, otherwise it has been dark.  But it is kind of cozy, and just the right size.  And it is not full of other people’s stuff, so I don’t feel like a guest in someone else’s home.  The other house also had a wood stove, but this has a wood stove AND wood, which means I actually use it to heat the living room rather than just retreat to the home office like I have done the last four winters.

Of course, once I have the computers up in the study, I may retreat there anyway.  But so far I have not even heard from the company that should install fiber-optic cable before Xmas.  And I don’t expect them to do it while the cold is this extreme.  Any outdoors work should be postponed till we get milder weather again… if we ever do. So far, it is just getting colder and colder. Although the long-term forecast still fantasizes about milder weather from this weekend, except it is now expected to suddenly start on Sunday.  I have read, not many years ago, that if the weather is dominated by a high-pressure area (as it is now) the best forecast is always “the same weather as yesterday”.  Sooner or later it will be wrong, of course, but it is impossible to know when, and until then it is right each time…

In other news, I’ve got a bad cough and a sore throat tonight, but I am not convinced that this is Moth-related.  My nose was stuffed with gunk this morning after all, and I had not been here for two days then.  It does not really feel like an allergy:  No running eyes or nose, no sneezing, just  coughing up small lumps from my bronchies.  Perhaps I should get more sleep, but then when would I re-watch Hikaru no Go? At least the bus travel gives me plenty of time for brainwave entrainment.  Using mostly LifeFlow 2 (2Hz delta).

And now it is once again the time when the bus rolls out from Mandal.  7 minutes later it should be on the bus stop. I better be there or there definitely won’t be much sleep tonight!