After the failure of my man to sort out the central heating, Mrs BW got her man in, and now we have hot water and heat again. It was a little switch apparently. A very expensive little switch nonetheless. I am now paranoid that it will stop working again and keep on fiddling with the thermostat to make sure that everything is well. Mrs BW says that if I continue to do this I will break it. We also have a carbon monoxide monitor. Mrs BW says it a good idea, and justified it by reading out to me all the horrible things that can happen to you if you have a build up of carbon monoxide. Very scary. I think we should have one in every room.
So at least the BW's won't be hibernating. (Not quite true as the Weasel hibernates at the weekends) And of course the cats hibernate for 99.9% of the year anyway regardless of the state of the boiler and climatic conditions.