An electric shock!

I made another trip up into the hills behind Castelmoron to see Monsieur Rigo this morning.

Our wood supply, which was supposed to last all winter, had dwindled to almost nothing.

This was because we had turned off all heating in the house and relied solely on the fire insert.

The reason? An electricity bill for just two months of 870 euros. Yes, 870 euros. You'd think we were running a foundry.

And, we thought we'd been using the power judiciously, nothing was on in the unoccupied rooms. The insert augmented the electric heaters, which were turned off through the night, except for our bedroom.

The bill was such a shock that EDF suggested we get an electrician in to check the house out.

Everything was working fine. Our electrician was bemused by EDF's suggestion, pointing out that any leakage would've activated the circuit breaker on the fuse board.

And here's me thinking South Australia's electricity supply was inefficient and expensive!

I wondered if maybe EDF needed the revenue to keep its infrastructure in good shape. After all, you wouldn't want to cut maintenance corners with nuclear power plants.

How people can afford electric central heating is a puzzle. Just another French mystery.