The British Gas people are here. I’ve been sitting in a powerless house for about an hour while they do something to my system that will allegedly make everything run more efficiently. A smart meter of some sort.

If you ask my upstairs neighbor, Geoffrey, what they’re really doing is secretly installing a system that will find a way to charge me more money. And now that I think about it, he is probably right. Damn.

I actually already have some kind of a heating control gadget that is linked to an app on my phone. Well, it used to be linked to an app on my phone. A few months back when my phone ran out of memory, I unceremoniously deleted it along with some other useless apps that were sucking up those precious 16GB.

So right now my utility guy is outside and making some sort of hammering sound. Or maybe that’s the next door neighbor. In any case, while he’s working away, he handed me a loaner booklet to study in order to be a better consumer of energy.  As I glanced at the cover, I informed him that this looked like very compelling reading. Luckily for me, Brits have excellent sarcasm, so I don’t think he expects me to crack this thing open before I have to hand it back to him at the end of his visit.

But, like I said, the electricity is out, and it’s dark in my apartment. So I might as well stand by the window and flip through the thing at least once before he takes it away. My folks were always big on conserving energy, so while I leave the door wide open for the British Gas guy to come and go as he pleases, I’ll review my best practices. The first page kindly requests that people take less than 10 minute showers. Who takes ten minute showers? I feel like I take a five minute shower on a long day. What do you people do in there? Nevermind, I really, truly, honestly don’t want to know.

Most pages had lots of words that included boring and obvious tips, à la Jimmy Carter: don’t block radiators, turn down your thermostat, cover your keyholes (really), put a sweater on (no, not really), fit double glazing on your windows…

Before I moved here, I was unfamiliar with the terms double glazing and triple glazing.  Now that I’ve moved into a house that offers practically zero glazing, I am painfully familiar with this concept. I now want quadruple glazing.  My tradeoff? I get charming windows that offer Halloween-y type whistling once the days turn short and the wind starts to blow. What happens is that I end up spending precious little time here in the winter months, and instead I up my at-home fashion game.

This is my hoodie. There are many others like it, but this one is my current favorite. I wear it when I have houseguests like the British Gas guy coming over. I’d say that my London neighborhood is pretty upscale, but honestly as a New Englander, I love my excessive supply of hoodies. You’ll find me in these more often than not when at home and conserving my heating bill.

This is my bathrobe. I wear it when I don’t have guests around the house, or the guests that do I have, they are people who have seen me in every state of just woken up disarray throughout the years. It, combined with my slippers, keeps me toasty as I walk around armed with either hot tea or whiskey. I am still looking through the energy guide to see if my staying warm tactics are included in the recommendations. They are not.

So the guide talks about defrosting your freezers, and of course keeping the door shut.  I think that these are all great ideas– especially if you have a usable freezer.

This is my freezer, and yes, the size is actually to scale when you are scrolling this blog entry on your smartphone screen. When I moved in, the top draw was already frozen shut with freezer element-covered frosties. Me, I’m not one to wage war in the arctic, and against something of a size that can hardly fit a proper half gallon of ice cream into it. So I don’t really open this thing up too often- except to extract frozen berries and kale with which to construct my morning smoothies. Considering the fact that I am hardly ever at home, I’d say that energy is duly conserved by limiting the use of my appliances altogether.

And while we’re on the subject of kitchen and cooking tips, I will say that I really do love to cook. This page here encourages use of the microwave which, admittedly, I never had much use for in my normal life. But ever since moving into this particular flat, I have discovered that I really do love Pop Secret Kettle Corn. I know this because I very often want to make it–but am no longer able.

This is my microwave. As you can see, although I live in an anglophone country, the apparatus is entirely in code. I fail to see neither the “minute plus” button nor the popcorn button in this selection of rune-like symbols.  And while I have wasted several perfectly good bags of popcorn trying to solve the microwave, I will regrettably admit that this stainless steel box is not helpful when I’m jonesing for salty and sweet. So, in review: my ice cream and popcorn consumption are at record low levels while living in England. I will note that my living room minibar requires almost zero support from British Gas.

I left my toaster oven back in America for duration of this job assignment, and while that aforementioned microwave allegedly doubles as a toaster, I figured that the one time where I set my bread (and the burner) asmoke was more than sufficient tinkering to figure that feature out. I do however miss my semi-burnt whole grain toast snacks with crunchy peanut butter and banana slices. What? It’s single person happy food, and now that I see that the British Gas Energy Guide doubles as a Sears Christmas Catalog for adults, I just might go purchase an eco-toaster. Motorised bread carriages? Well why didn’t you say so? Argos, here I come.

I am am not buying another hair dryer. The UK one I already bought from Argos does just fine in blowing my hair out so that it looks exactly as it would if I didn’t blow dry my hair at all.  So unless this here model comes with a Vidal Sassoon trained stylist (I’m looking at you, Will Bainer), then I’m sticking with my current jam. Besides, I don’t want to look overdressed in my hoodie.

After about two hours of walking around my house and making me think hard about where electrical stuff like circuit breakers were located, the British Gas guy finally gave me a crash course in my glossy new energy reader.  He punched a lot of buttons, and showed me how I could monitor my usage, budget for the coming month, and even compare how I do between previous days. It was kinda like a Fitbit that doesn’t really go anywhere. He propped it on my mantle, where it would be directly in my line of sight if I ever came into my ice box living room after November.  What I find amusing is that it’s right in front of an old family portrait from 1987 (after so many moves, I no longer believe in nailing up pictures). My parents, as I said, were big on us kids not being big drains on the utility bill. So now, not only do I have British Gas watching over me, I’ve got the whole family, complete with 80s hairdos, to judge my usage as well.  I’ve got my hat and mittens ready. I’m totally ready for winter.