It’s an interesting moment in life when you realize that no matter how much money you’ve saved, you may not be able to stop something.

In the last few weeks, there has been the development of a plan for rolling blackouts in London through the winter if there’s not enough oil to generate enough electricity.

There is also news of crazy, crazy price hikes on electricity and gas – two things that are like oh, so convenience and luxury items and totally not all key things to keep from freezing to death during the winter.

And while I note that it doesn’t matter how much money you have, you won’t be able to dodge the blackouts (I suppose you could buy properties in different areas of England and just never be at the blackout property on it’s blackout night?), the idea of paying £8000+ for gas to heat a one bedroom apartment is like… WHAT THE WHAT?!?!

That’s almost like paying my rent again for the month.

Fortunately, we got word that the helpful British government will be capping gas prices at £4000 a household.

Which is still fairly crazy. And then is that £4000 for this property or for each flat in this property? Cause that’s a bit lame to cap it for someone who happens to live in a house this size versus getting that from each of the four one bedroom flats this old house has been subdivided into.

Also, is that £4000 like in your first bill and now you’ve hit your cap a la the American healthcare system or what’s really their plan here?

I don’t think there’s a real plan here. Maybe by the time we’re on the fourth prime minister since I moved here in April, they’ll have a plan but, to be honest, I think they’re all planning to rock the moving between the many houses they own plan.

Or government homes will magically skip the blackouts. I’d bet almost anything Downing Street probably will.

Ok. Well. Now that that’s off my chest, after the deep internal sighs, and then a bit of panic, and finally moving to being resigned about this, I realized that I actually know how to be quite cold.

Like… near epically cold.

I lived in an RV in New York City in 2017, which, while it wasn’t record breaking, was notably brutal. We had the most snow for the fifth year running since that 1880s and the average temperature during the three months we were there was 14 degrees (November), 0 degrees (December), and -4 degrees (January).

I was genuinely dangerous to run out of propane in our RVs. And propane was crazy expensive so we rigged up all sorts of heater systems, but then you have to watch about tripping your power. You could usually have one small heater plugged directly into your RV, other than that you had to run extension cords from outside, through a window that you then had to stuff and tape shut around the cord and then into your RV, which would also power about one heater, while hoping your neighbours didn’t get greedy also pulling from that same source and trip the power from it.

Essentially, my RV was piles of blankets on my bed or the couch, the only two places I would nest when I was actually in it. And all the heater would just be on in the room I was in.

Thick slippers were also a must because there was no helping the fact that the floor was going to be freezing.

And whether or not there would be water was iffy because we had to use some of that power for heat lamps outside that were positions on the water spickets, and the hoses and just hope it worked well enough for them to not freeze.

I will say that when they did freeze and I had to go use the public shower trailer, that while it was kind of gross, it did have an unlimited supply of hot water and between that and eating in the pie car, they were pretty much the only two times I was ever warm that winter while I was on the lot.

So I’m borrowing similar techniques and my boyfriend, who is laughing now because he pays a flat rate for his rent and utilities (we’ll see how long that lasts if the prices rise as much as they say they are going to), thinks I am insane.

Rather than paying the astronomical gas fees, I currently contend with the high electric fees – which are particularly exciting now because I don’t totally know how anticipate my usage with the heaters because of the ridiculous electric key and meter downstairs (you can read about that debacle here).

I have two little heaters just like my RV – one set in the living room and one in the bedroom. The kitchen and the bathroom are just cold – though when I’m showering, I keep the door open to the living room and heat the whole thing to avoid pneumonia. I pretty much spend all day in the living room and then all evening in the bedroom and the opposite room is always cold.

I have an ok pair of slippers but am in the market for better ones. I’ve actually been looking at buying a pair of dance booties because they are supposed to be crazy warm and very comfortable.

While I’m home over the holidays, I’m going to dig out all my ridiculously warm circus clothes – a coworker told me very early on that there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.

I don’t totally agree but while you can’t control the weather, you can control your clothes – so fleece lined everything all winter, I guess.

And while I don’t love the 20 minute walk down the hill to work in the PhD office at school, I think it’s going to be a much more regular thing so that my tuition pays for part of my heating every day rather than me.

 

As for the three hour, middle of the night rolling blackouts, I guess we’ll see how they go if they wind up happening. Hopefully if I can get the flat warm enough before midnight, I’ll sleep right through it and it won’t be too cold when the power comes back on.

America and England always seemed so similar to me, even last time I lived here, but that doesn’t feel like the case this time around.

I know you’re all fascinated by this report, so I’ll keep you updated on my state of frozen in my accountability updates through the winter too. Ugh. 🙂