The Anonymous Widower

Do We Put Our Heating On At The Right Time?

I have been puzzled, why after C died, I started to develop hay fever like symptoms. I blogged about it first here in April 2010, which was before I had the serious stroke.

I have just read this thoughtful article on the BBC entitled “Is It Too Early To Put The Central Heating On?”.

i asked someone who knew us well, and they said that the house was always very cold.

Now both C and myself, were brought up in cold houses, with perhaps hers a little bit warmer than mine because she was down in the valley at East Barnet and I was on top of the hill at Cockfosters.

When I met her, she had the worst chilblains I’ve ever seen. They disappeared fairly soon afterwards and she always put it down to wearing Scholl sandals.  She incidentally wore those virtually until the day she died. I suspect there was not one day in the forty years we were together she didn’t put a pair on.  She even drove in them. She always said, I should, as they would keep my feet warm.

But could the death of her chilblains be put down to her not living in her parents’ house any more? She was in a warm Hall of Residence in Liverpool and afterwards we lived generally in warmer housing, until we moved to Suffolk.

My house as a child was very cold and I was always having time off with a hat fever like runny nose. In fact one of my memories is my mother boiling up handkerchiefs on the gas stove for my father and I.  He suffered terrible catarrh and was always sucking on dreadful menthol sweets. I remember, he used to keep his garage very warm and I would often go there to talk to him and listen to football on the Light Programme. Did I go because it was warm?

But everything changed when my grandmother died, as my parents could now afford more electric fires and perhaps more importantly, I got the big sunny bedroom at the back of the house. I was also about twelve and could spend more time in the fresh air, when it wasn’t cold.

Over the years in Suffolk, C and I developed our own ways of living with cold weather.

She always wrapped up well, did a lot of exercise and I usually had a fan heater playing on my feet.

I did keep my car hotter than she did.  I seem to remember, she adjusted her Porsche to 22.5°C. I liked it warmer.

I can also remember staying in hotels in London several times when C complained very much about the high temperature.

When she died in 2007, I did a lot of things to warm the house up, like putting in extra radiators and buying the thickest duvet I could find. I have since bought a thinner one.

It does seem strange that my rhinitis started about that time.

So it does seem that temperature and humidity, has a lot of effect on my rhinitis.

One thing I’m going to do, is make sure my heating and ventilation is completely and precisely controllable.

September 17, 2013 Posted by AnonW | Health, World | My House, Rhinitis | 2 Comments