Central Heating....

Welly winter has arrived. When I say winter, I mean 'winter': a sometimes rainy but mostly just cool and beautiful time of year. It feels like a Midwestern autumn to me which was always my favorite time of year when I lived there. The changing color of the leaves and the anticipation of the forthcoming snow. Well, here things are a bit different. Snow is, let's just say, unlikely. And the leaves on the trees are only ever one color regardless of the time of year. Green. Lush and green. Green like after a drenching summer rain green. And I love green - it's one thing I truly missed when we lived in MT. The grass was green some of the time but with it being so much drier than the Midwest it, understandably, wasn't nearly as lush.

So with temperatures dipping ever so slightly we've found that our flat can seem a little chilly at times. Big window and not much for insulation, yeah. I can admit that I have no problem bundling up when I'm at home - I get cold very easily and have accepted it as my lot in life. So I dress accordingly even if it looks ridiculous to be wearing a sweatshirt (hood up) with a scarf and Timmy's down booties that are a couple of sizes too big. Hey, it's warm. :)

And I should mention that our flat doesn't have heat of any kind. No baseboard heaters, no forced air. And we've learned that this is fairly common here in NZ. If you want heat in your home most people install a heater in the main living area. I remember hearing someone say this before we moved here and thinking, "oh no, we're not going to have any heat in our bedroom". I have to laugh now since our place is so tiny that the main living area and the bedroom are one and the same. :)

To solve our chilly dilemma we found a smallish space heater and it does wonders to warm up the place. We don't even need to run it everyday, which is great for the power bill, but it's nice to know that we can turn it on when needed. A new definition of  'central heating'.