when two weeks ago I left for Switzerland, I asked to neighbors to turn on the heating the day before our arrival. To save energy, during our absence it was set to 10˚, and we expected to find the house at 19˚ when coming back.

So at 5am, the day of our arrival, we were kind of surprised to, well, find that the house temperature was 9˚. The heater was broken. I have no skills whatsoever in fixing home appliance, so we went to sleep, with the baby sleeping between me and my wife: concentrating human heaters in one place seemed like a good idea.

But there was something else disturbing our sleeptime: not only the cold air of the house (you could see moisture exhaling!), but a letter arrived the day after our departure: we had to find a new energy supplier, otherwise electricity and gas would have been cut out the day… before our arrival! It wasn’t happened yet, but we suspected it would have, very soon. So quickly, before falling asleep, we picked up a new energy supplier through internet, not knowing if it was soon enough.

Soon enough I wake up and called the landlord, which, after a short visit to determine whether he could fix the heater, called a technician to fix it. Being weekend we had to wait some hours, that I spent doing the wrongest thing in case of a cold house: thinking!

What was I thinking? Why was I thinking? Well, I wasn’t able to perform any other activity, so worried for my 5 months old daughter and my pregnant wife. That, and the cold.

I had a couple of sweater, warm socks, but still I felt the coldness of the house. It was like being trapped. I couldn’t sleep, waiting for the technician. I couldn’t use the computer, because my fingers were too cold to type. I could just think.

How did they overcome this cold centuries ago? Smaller room, smaller windows, more people, and fire. We didn’t have any of those, except the kitchen fire. But still, outside the smalle room with fire, what were they doing to prevent themselves from freezing? They were working, keeping them busy, not thinking. The thinking and listening was restricted to the small room, in the evening, arond the fire, when the elders woud tell some tales. They had an easy time keeping the people listining, because when the stories were over, it meant it was time to get outside the small, warm, room. They still were able to get to bed, probably warm at the beginning, but cold in the morning. Moreover, more people used to sleep in the same room, still small and with small windows. In practice, they had way to keep theirselves warm, at least in some places. We didn’t. Eventually, while I was thinking, the techincian came by, and fixed the thing. It was like rediscovering the fire, again, in 2010. Everything began to change. I could get under the blankets again, and get some warm, coveted sleep. Finally.

The take home message is: get some portable eletric heater: it will be useful to warm the smallest room of your house, where you’ll be able to tell tales and to think. And no one will interrupt.

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