White Coppice in Winter
2 Tiny stitcheries from Nikki Tervo’s Quilting Mouse
We went to White Coppice on Sunday, safe in the knowledge that we would have a warm home to come back to no thanks to the 2 local heating engineer companies we had approached. The company who installed the Ariston boiler in 2005 and serviced it annually ever since, wouldn’t come out when the fault of it not lighting up was intermittent. So we asked a 2nd company to come. They changed a part but then it wouldn’t work at all and said it needed a new board. We then approached our original company. They charged us a call out fee and said it had the same problem. They quoted as astronomical £580 for the board to be put in. We asked the 2nd company for a quote but he never got back to us. Very odd.
Fed up with waiting and being cold, Lovely Husband opened up the boiler and took a look at the board. He sourced the part locally and fitted it himself for £180 including VAT. He then checked all the other electrical connections and the boiler started up again. Immediately it started to drip. It was then we noticed 3 nuts were missing! There was no sign at all of them and they had clearly been removed. Suspicious! As soon as we put 3 bog standard wing nuts on, the dripping ceased and the boiler started working better than ever. We think someone was trying to make extra work to be paid for.
Needless to say we wont be using either of those 2 firms again!
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I can honestly say I wallowed like a hippo in a long deep rose scented bath and didn’t care how long I stayed there! It was gloriously decadent! It was also the warmest I had felt all week. I told Lovely Husband that he could buy himself a bottle of plonk as a celebration. All hail the conquering hero! – wasn’t that from Disney’s Aladin?
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So let us go inland by Chorley to White Coppice, the Brigadoon of the Moors. It still feels surreal going over the hills, seeing the Moors and there is a cricket pitch! Who ever had the idea? There is something eccentric genius/ Port Meirion about it.
White Coppice cricket pitch in a light smattering of snow. I took you here back in August I think when everything was still green.
Lovely Husband wasn’t with us when we did the woodland walk to Brinscall last time so he was keen to see it for himself. It felt less like a cave without the leaves. I still kept thinking of Red Riding Hood and the wood path to Grandma’s House.
The snow accented the skeletons of the trees. Walking back I kept looking behind me thinking that someone (the Big Bad Wolf?) was following us, but it wasn’t foot fall, just snow from the branches falling in clumps.
The sun was almost down when we got back to the car, but the snow on the cricket pitch hadn’t melted. Snow is forecast tonight and we had -2c last night.
I fell asleep curled up with Squeak in the car on the way home. Greyhounds are so soporific and relaxing. After the week we’d had, this walk was much needed. We had a warm house and hot chocolate to come back to, and a roast chicken for supper. Sunday was a lovely day. I hope you enjoyed it too. What are you finding relaxing at the moment?
Posted in Crafts, Travels by House Elf with 8 comments.