Yesterday afternoon Bernard and Carina, the Austrian neighbors, came over to bring some of their cows' milk, and they sat down for a cup of tea. Obligatory discussion about the weather and keeping warm ensued. The discussion was reflective of one of Peter and Julie's most important and yet unsolved concern: how to get warm water from burning wood?
Already on my first night here, while in the car with Peter, waiting for Chris to pick us up with their bus, a large part of the conversation revolved around that topic. In UK, he told me (and also in Austria, according to Bernard and Carina), it is pretty normal for people with wood stoves to also have that stove connected to a water boiler and tank (or something - the mechanics of it are still a bit mysterious to me). In this way one can provide heated water to use, but also to heat the rest of the house.
But in France, even though people have always kept warm with wood, such water heating devices are just impossible to find, and everyone warms their water with electricity! (I know a woman in Normandy who has such a system in her house. I asked her where she got it from, and she told me that she designed it herself, and had forced her plumber, or charmed him into, building it for her.)
Peter and Julie tried to get one shipped from the UK, but they could not find a provider who would do it. So the issue is still unsolved.
It seems that at all times people have made (or not made, perhaps rather) silly decisions concerning how to best keep warm. In the old house here, the floor is made of huge stones directly in contact with the ground. It is beautiful, but incredibly damp and cold. Perhaps this is not so much of a problem in the summer, which I was told is very hot here, but definitely the situation is unbearable for the winter (and I cannot see how people in the past could have made it, else than by having the floor covered with many layers of furred skins, which it seems would not have been the most hygienic way, either). But modern times do not necessarily do better: in the new ("modern") house (actually made of part of the old barn converted into a kitchen and a bedroom), the walls are made of cement. And it turns out that cement does not breath, keeping the moisture trapped inside, and a feast for molds.
As I write, I look at the cats sleeping and purring on the couch next to me. They spend most of their days sleeping, either all curled up on top of each other, or next to the stove. These ones certainly know how to keep warm.
