Keeping warm Symi style
Now that the wind is coming in from the north and it’s turning cold. Heating a Symi house in the winter can be a complicated affair. For us it means:
Closing certain shutters and thus shutting out the daylight. If the balcony shutters are left open, as they are on all but the windiest days (when they rattle, and cause neighbour annoyance I expect), then draft proofing measures must be taken. I was looking at our balcony doors once upon a winter and realised that the (looks up the correct term) threshold has a raised bit running across it (no technical term for that could be found) where the balcony doors rest against when shut; a kind of token draft protector. Except it wasn’t, as the doors didn’t quite meet it.
[A quick aside: this is my dodgy shot of the Blue Star leaving on Tuesday night, taken through the window on an underwater camera, as promised.]
This meant that the wind could rush in from the north, over the balcony floor, up and over the raised bit (new technical term there) and down the other side, under the doors that don’t quite reach the stone threshold and into the room. It could do this even when the shutters were shut as they too are not a perfect fit. So, one day, I went hunting around the bins up at the windmills (you would be surprised how many people do this bin-hunting thing, you can find all kinds of useful unwanteds there, from antiques to pieces of polystyrene the exact shape and size to act as a draft excluder) I found a piece of polystyrene the exact shape and size to act as a draft excluder. (see, I told you.) I have no idea what it was in its previous life but now it rests between door and ‘raised bit’ on the threshold and keeps out some of the wind.
That’s stage one. Stage two involves old towels to wedge in the reaming gap on the inside. Stage three involves taking the quilt from the bed (which mother supplied with handy hooks; the quilt I mean, not the bed, that would be too odd) and threading it through an extendable shower curtain pole which then gets extended in the recess within the casing (more technical words, I looked them up) so it stays there, most of the time. That done and all light blocked out even when the shutters are open, it’s on with the heater. There’s another curtain (Habitat) on a shower pole across the open doorway into the passage, directly on the right of which are the double front doors and their own variety of gaps and wind passes, and this curtain is also pulled across as best it can be.
Then it’s time to sit on the sofa, pull the thermal blanket over the knees and feet, and allow the cat to add itself for extra warmth. Then it’s time to realise you’ve not pulled the outside curtain (Jenine made us) over the outside door on its own extendable shower rail, so you get up to do that and let the heat out. Those shower poles are very useful as they don’t involve drilling and it’s easy to take the things down in the summer.
Anyway, there was a slight wind yesterday and so all that was going on. I’m now off to prepare for our lunch up at Yiannis’ house (we have already been though a checklist of things to talk about so conversation in what will be Greek-ish doesn’t come to a halt) which will see me try and put on my Crombie over the new woollen cardigan Neil brought me from England. I shall be waddling up the hill puffed out like an tyre advert, but I shall at least be warm.
