Copley winter wonderland – the risk of living in England’s snowiest village

Well that was a pretty useless week, but it is pretty here a Copley winter wonderland

Subscribe to My Dream House by Email

Every evening after work I spent with my little girl – now that certainly wasn’t useless – but not an ounce of work was achieved on the house during the week.

The weekend though and I had a full day to get something done, however the fates were against me and the Friday evening before I’d dutifully babysat my daughter… well I’d expected to get back at the very latest around midnight, well things didn’t turn out just quite right and when I’d returned to Glenville and turned in, it was four in the morning.

So not a happy puppy and I was up at ten, the world had all turned a fluffy white, my village had girded its loins and lived up to its reputation as the snowiest village in England (5th in the UK) and there was a solid five inches of snow on the ground with a flurry of snow in the air. Still I didn’t have time to admire the view, I needed to catch up and get things done. With this in mind I tried to rush things and… while picking up a bag of coal to throw on the fire and…. bingo during a twist while lifting the sack, my back goes twang and there goes my day.

House you would draw as a kid – Copley winter wonderland

It wasn’t really bad, not 80’s comedy-like “Terry and June” with Terry’s back going twang and him doubled up in comic agony, more a nasty muscular sprain without – hopefully – any backbones coming out in sympathy. The disturbing thing was that it was on the opposite side of my back to wherever I’ve had back problems in the past, so it was invading new muscular territory.

So what could I do, well first I threw that bleedin’ coal on the fire and attempted to get the house warmed up. I then put on a weightlifter’s belt I had earmarked for just an occasion and I followed this with some food and then some serous sulking on the couch.

After a bit of TV and some serious brooding with some pouting thrown in for good measure I managed to sort out my washing, I then put some paint samplers on the wall and after this I wandered outside to do a bit of wood sourcing and some light chopping. Happy now that I wasn’t in agony during exertion I decided to sand down the kitchen ceiling and once the dust had subsided I then moved onto painting the ceiling with a mist coat of watered down Dulux emulsion.

Christmas tree – Copley winter wonderland

That was it, that was my day, I had intended to get base coats onto all the walls in my chosen colour palette, but this was sunk by:

1. My sodding back
2. The fact that there were now too many inches of snow on the floor to get the car off the drive and down to B&Q to buy a few litres of off-white paint.

I’d also intended to research the damp on the back wall of the kitchen. As I mentioned in my previous post this damp may have been caused by the extraordinary events and sideways rains of Storm Desmond, but whatever the cause I preferred to get it sorted or at least fully researched. I expected that most of the ingress was symptomatic of the window having a fault in the external seal or guttering so that needed researching, but there was also the chance that there might be a broken drain or excess shrubbery that was causing water-logged soil.

In order to contend with these potential problems I had a number of ideas at my fingertips. The first would be a simple inspection during a deluge but the others were a bit more cunning. The most cunning of these would be to make and endoscope using some of the instructions from YouTubers to investigate the state of my drains inner workings. However this would be held in reserve after drain investigation plan 01, this being the sprinkling of fluorescent crystals into the drain and then using a hose to saturate the drain with water and inspect for leakage using a UV torch. Perhaps mine out some holes with an auger to allow the potentially irradiated (or uv-adiated) water to the surface.

Once these plans had been put into operation – and perhaps even before that – I would use some sealant and mortar to seal up any exterior fissures that may be suspect to water ingress. This being one end of the scale of plans I expected to motivate, the others involving removing clogging matter from my guttering etc. while the other end of the scale involved digging a sink/French drain.

Tools of the drain expert’s trade – Copley winter wonderland

What was wonderful about this was my folks putting out the feelers regarding my drainage peril and the next day my wonderful Uncle Brian coming up with the goods with a long term loan of a pick-axe and spit. Add to this the two augers and a ladies (border) spade from my Dad and I was overwhelmed with the generosity and kindness of my Dad and Uncle.

I must admit that with the plastic sheeting in the boot of my car, if I’d been stopped by the police on my way home that evening I would have had some explaining to do with the amount of excavation equipment in the boot of my car.

Hopefully my back will be back in action next weekend.

Subscribe to My Dream House by Email