It may be the first day of spring (I was reminded by my little French-word-of-the-day-calendar), but we woke up this morning to snow.
Bill sent me a text message letting me know it was even snowing at his office in Grenoble. So I know he’s not too happy that we are going away for the weekend. I booked a trip to Avignon weeks ago. Who’d have guessed it would be snowy this weekend?
It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s a very good thing that we’ve already made plans to be gone. Because as much as I know Bill wants to stay home to ski all weekend, there’s no way I’m staying here. Neither of us realized that we were running out of heating oil. Until last night when I went to give Kaitlyn her bath and filled the tub with icy water. We went to the basement and realized… oops. No oil. No hot water. No heat. And it’s a holiday weekend here. Monday is a day off for just about everyone except those poor cashiers at Carrefour.
Sort of luckily, my French cooking class was this morning. That meant I’d have a French teacher here who could call and schedule a delivery of fuel. Less luckily, that meant I’d have a pile of dishes to do afterward. She called and the fuel will be here Tuesday. Morning. Between 8 and 1. (I’ll have to figure out what to do if they don’t come by the time I have to get Kaitlyn for lunch. Oh, and when I have to take Kaitlyn to school. This stinks! Maybe she’ll just get the day off.)
As for those dishes, I tried heating water on the stove then pouring it into the sink. But that really didn’t work so well. After a while, I finally just did my best to rinse the dishes and stack them neatly to be dealt with Tuesday afternoon. (The dishwasher is already full with yesterday’s dirties.)
Bill built a fire in the fireplace before he left for work. Between that and the oven being on, the house stayed fairly warm. I did have to lend the teacher a pair of slippers since our heated floors were bone chilling. Once everyone left, I realized the fire had gone out. And I’ve been trying for the past couple of hours to get it going again, but once my fire starter burns out, it’s out. I’m running out of starter, so I’m going to just stop while I’m ahead. We’ll need to start a fire Monday night when we get home! A weekend with no heat should ensure a very, very cold house.
The experience must be like the pioneers, or inhabitants of your area in France years ago when candles and kerosene lamps were the norm. Apparently there’s no predetermined schedule for oil delivery until you call them, and no way for you to know when you need to call. Perhaps a dipstick in the tank, so you could check on the reserve right after you churn butter and pound clothes on rocks when they’re dirty.