The battle of the thermostat is nearly over for another winter

IT’S actually starting to feel like spring.

This is marvellous for two reasons: one being that I’d like to start leaving the house again without putting on multiple layers and, two, we can end the ridiculous seasonal dance of the thermostat.

You know the one I mean, the one couples up and down Wales have been doing since September. It’s where one half of a couple, usually the lady of the house, turns it up and then, five minutes later when she’s left the room, the other half turns it down.

Then, wondering why her toes are still numb, said lady returns to the room, finds heating off, mutters a few expletives and turns it back on.

Husband begins wandering around the house in a feigned casual manner, puffing out cheeks and exclaiming “phew” at no-one in particular and then starts running the palm of his hand along the nearest radiator.

After he leaves the room, the lady of the house will notice the temperature has started to plummet again and will find the heating has been turned off AGAIN.

It’s at this point in the dance that I usually bellow: “Have you turned this flaming heating off again, Pete? I’m bloody freezing.”

To which Pete will reply, rather annoyingly: “You need to start eating your veg. That’ll keep you warm.”

Really? I know the right food can do marvellous things to your body but a bit of swede is no replacement for our trusty Glow-worm boiler. My mother’s been trying to sell me that one for the past 40 years and I’m still not buying.

This ridiculous to-ing and fro-ing has been going on in our house since the autumn. Despite both sides in the hot v cold row holding talks at the start of the season in which we agreed mutually acceptable times to programme the boiler to come on, the manual override switch is now practically worn out.

While we agree on most things in life, Pete and I can never, ever agree on the right temperature.

I admit I feel the cold. But then again the temperature has to drop below freezing for several consecutive days before Pete will even consider putting a jumper on – he just generates his own heat.

And as the temperature has fluctuated between colder and milder spells throughout the winter, so our abuse of the manual override has intensified.

As I work from home I do wear warm clothes so I don’t have to run the heating all day. But there are some times when I’ve just got to give in – usually when the cold makes my fingers stiff and typing becomes impossible.

At the other end of the scale, it can be sleeting outside and Pete will be complaining that the living room is like the Sahara Desert.

This week he went a step further – almost a step too far – when I went to the kitchen to turn the heating on yet AGAIN after he’d turned it off and found a crudelywritten note stuck to the control panel. It said: “Please turn me back on 28/09/17.”

Not only had he turned the heating off, he’d changed the boiler setting from “Timed” to “Off”. The hot water switch had gone the same way.

Thankfully for him I saw the funny side, promptly ripped the notice down and warmed up the house.

As we’ve already tried using Luke to break the deadlock – it never works for me as he takes after his dad in the heat department – I posted a picture of the note on Facebook to see what people thought. Thankfully, I received the support I’d been hoping for. We’re definitely not alone in our battle. While men widely seem to consider that the only appropriate time to put the heating on is when icicles form on the end of your nose, women in general take the attitude: “Stuff the bills, I’d rather be warm.”

One friend also posted that the winter heating season is late September to May. I am SO with her about this, especially given our unpredictable weather.

So although it seems like spring is around the corner for now and Pete’s yet again turned the boiler properly off, I think our ridiculous dance will continue for a while.