Monday 11 January 2010

It has arrived!

Late last night the thaw set in here. I noticed it when I heard "plop" into one of the containers left on the window sill, just in case. We had had no more water dripping in to the living room as long as it was frosty but now our bedroom window seal had surrendered as well so it was to work with what few newspapers we had left and some large polythene carrier bags to catch and mop up the water. Now, most of it seems to have seeped out of wherever it had been, up under the tiles, and the bedroom window at least, has dried up. So far, no wet stains on walls or carpet, but rather a lot of soggy newspaper in the recycling bin.
Chic spent the forenoon shinning up and down a ladder, like a yoyo, with kettles of boiling water to thaw the mound of ice in the rhones and at last he freed them enough to pick out the ice, chunk by chunk. That should allow the melting ice now to drain back down from higher up under the tiles as well as from the surface .
I chipped away, outside the back door, at the packed down snow, which had turned to ice and shovelled it into a pile but shortly afterwards I found that Charlie and the pups had been carrying chunks into the kitchen---another mess to clear up.

6 comments:

Mary said...

Fingers crossed Anne that your troubles are now over (and that we don't get any more snow). We have a constant drip, drip too, and the smaller icicles are rapidly disappearing, but the slippery ice outside the back door is a menace and would need a pickaxe to move as it had built up like a stalagmite from the icicle above.

Janie said...

We haven't thawed out yet, but it's always a bit of a mess when the snow and ice melts.
Sorry about that inside dripping. All the cleaning up sounds like a chore.

Chris said...

Yipee for the thaw, it's thawing up here too thank goodness' although it's actually made our lane worse at the moment,(water on top of ice). I hope you don't have to suffer too many leaks.

Mary said...

Aye, and it went "plop, plop" through the light fitting, dripping off the bulb in our little toilet and leaving a puddle on the carpet there. Roll on summer.

Oman Collective Intelligence said...

Nice blog. A warm hello from Oman.

Gail said...

Maybe this will the only big freeze.

Ice chunks in the kitchen? That is too funny, bet you weren't laughing when you cleaned that up.

Wonderful idea with the hot water.

Those needle like puppy teeth look sharp...and adorable.