scattyme (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} scattyme) wrote,@ 2007-12-18 22:59:00 |
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Very cold here now
We stopped in Lys on Monday, on our way up to Dijon, and the water in the electric kettle that we have there, about four or five inches deep, was frozen solid.
On Monday we also went to visit the Abbey of Fontenay, a well-preserved Cistercian abbey from the twelfth century. It had a big forge which was very advanced for its time, making clever use of the stream nearby.
It also had a bakery and the monks sold their bread and wine to the dukes of Burgundy. The dukes kept their hunting dogs at the abbey. You could still see their kennels, and the kennel of the monks' own guard dog, which had a hole in it for the dog to stick its head through.
I had a good thick hat and coat on but had made the mistake of only wearing one pair of thin trousers, and I was so obsessed with being cold that I could barely take in the assorted wonders at the monastery. The thing that stuck most in my mind was the fact that the monks only had one properly heated room. Admittedly it had two fireplaces and was quite small, so if you went in there when the fires were lit you probably could have got warm. Also, if the right doors were left open in the abbey, the fires were able to provide a small amount of heating for the huge dormitory and common room.
Still, it struck me as pushing frugality a bit too far to be huddling around in the monastery in the dead of winter, reading your scriptures or doing whatever chores you were supposed to be doing. I can definitely relate to trying to be frugal, but I guess I have my limits, and being too cold when there's really no need to be too cold is definitely one of them.
We stopped in Lys on Monday, on our way up to Dijon, and the water in the electric kettle that we have there, about four or five inches deep, was frozen solid.
On Monday we also went to visit the Abbey of Fontenay, a well-preserved Cistercian abbey from the twelfth century. It had a big forge which was very advanced for its time, making clever use of the stream nearby.
It also had a bakery and the monks sold their bread and wine to the dukes of Burgundy. The dukes kept their hunting dogs at the abbey. You could still see their kennels, and the kennel of the monks' own guard dog, which had a hole in it for the dog to stick its head through.
I had a good thick hat and coat on but had made the mistake of only wearing one pair of thin trousers, and I was so obsessed with being cold that I could barely take in the assorted wonders at the monastery. The thing that stuck most in my mind was the fact that the monks only had one properly heated room. Admittedly it had two fireplaces and was quite small, so if you went in there when the fires were lit you probably could have got warm. Also, if the right doors were left open in the abbey, the fires were able to provide a small amount of heating for the huge dormitory and common room.
Still, it struck me as pushing frugality a bit too far to be huddling around in the monastery in the dead of winter, reading your scriptures or doing whatever chores you were supposed to be doing. I can definitely relate to trying to be frugal, but I guess I have my limits, and being too cold when there's really no need to be too cold is definitely one of them.
