At 4pm I switched my spa on to heat for the evening session and when I went to check on it 2 hours later, I was horrified to find it had not heated a single degree since I turned it on!!
The digital moniter still read a very stubborn 29 degrees!! So inbetween getting Dereks dinner ready, faffing about making home-made candles and giving Sirius his tea, I began frantically messing about with my tub, with a deep frown and a sinking heart. When Derek came home while all this was going on he naturally asked me what was up and when I told him his face dropped too!! It dopped even further when I told him a relacement heater would cost £500!!!
Many expleatives filled the air at Vicky Towers, I can tell you!!
Anyway I turned it off and turned it on again, gently tapping the engine aea of the spa to see if that would help, and miracliously the moniter went up a degree...and then another, a short while later. Briefly, I breathed a sigh of relife, just to have another horror filled my mind...my spa would not be hot enough for my usual 9pm session!! So as it tuned out I had a very brief and if albeit cooler spa at 10pm when the heat had only risen to 37 degees (my normal heat is 42 degrees) ...even Sirius looked perplexed!!!
Us humans really can be a very stupid species!!...When we panic, all our logic vanishes!!! a bit like the scenario of lost car keys when your late for work. ..As I sat in my marginally cooler tub I started to think. "Vicky, what time of year is it? and how warm?" Well its mid October and at night about 8 degrees! and thus was my answer!! My tub was simply not heating as quickly as it would in the warm summer evenings!! and a little knowledge of how a hot tub works comes into play here too. When the heater is switched on, the tub filtre comes on automatically so the filtered water that blows out into the tub, passes the heating element and so heating the water. When the tub is running in full bubble mode the air outside the tub is drawn in to make the bubbles and if the outside air in cooler this will in turn make the tub cooler and in a half hour session the heat can crop by 3 degrees or more, if its cold enough! I have memories of using my tub last winter when the temp dropped to an arctic -20 and my tub session were cut to 10 mins and I had to cover the lid of my tub with blankets to keep the heat in...I kid you not!!!!
I am cetainly not looking to have a repeat of last winter!!
Solution!!!! Turn my spa on to heat earlier and keep the lid covered. A little extra work, but its worth it!!
In other news...
Over the last weekend I had a vey powerfull compulsion to buy a crystal ball....I have no idea where this feeling came from or what prompted it, but the urge was irrisistable! So the day before yesterday I took delivery of a large, beautiful crystal ball. But as I know next to nothing about them I began to do a lot of research on the intenet. I do have some brief knowledge of Pagan and Wiccan beliefs and I have been using the Tarot for nearly 20 years, but this is an entirely different ball game, if you pardon the pun.
