You may just possibly note a more than passing obsession with water and roofs. Well my fervent desire is that such issues are all well behind us now. The sterling chaps from Capital Windows in New Milton fetched up with (almost) all the required bits and pieces and soon dismantled our leaking and unfit for purpose sunroom roof and replaced it with something more than a little reminiscent of Kew Gardens. It has a ridge with pointy things on an everything. Since then, try as it might, the weather has not managed to breach its polycarbonate and aluminium defences. Hurrah! The bits that were required yet absent? Well the CW conservatories have everything boxed in one way or another but if you have a 35 degree pitch to the roof and the manufacturer sends a 30 degree maximum widget to cover the aluminium structure, you have to get them to send the right one. No fuss, no drama, Capital Windows got it sorted. You may gather we are happy with their work, and you wouldn’t be wrong.

Slight downside is that we only got about a month out of it before it got too cold to use as a breakfast room. It soaks the sun up beautifully in the morning, but regretfully there has not been an enormous amount of that around more recently. We are therefore faced with several alternatives given the current economic and eco-climate. Firstly we can just put more layers on and pretend it’s not November in Britain, but that requires a deeper reserve of denial than we can probably plumb. Secondly increase our contribution to that little bit of global warming that is Lymington, ignore financial constraints and run a heater sufficiently powerful enough to hold the cold at bay. Or not use it until it gets a tad warmer. Although the pull of the second option is strong, if I were a betting man, the last option would be what I put my money on.

That would also mean that we don’t get to see the hedgehog eat whatever it is he is finding on the lawn just before we retire for the night. It had become our refuge from the day and a perfect place to wind down before going to bed, and the hedgehog bumbling around outside the back of the sunroom was just an added bonus. I imagine that he, well they actually as there are two of them, will be seeking somewhere warm to see out the rest of the winter oblivious of the world around them. Ever get the feeling we have missed a trick as a species?