Freezing cold

The UK is suffering under some wintery weather at the moment.

It doesn't snow often in Liverpool - in fact in the twenty years I've lived here I have seen snow lying on the ground on only six occasions. The city is pretty much coastal and quite sheltered from the worst the Irish Sea lets through, so generally its warm and, at worst, wet. But this winter we have had snow falls (not that plural it's never happened before), and for snow to 'stick' at this time of year is unprecedented as far as I know here.
I don't know if this part of a new trend, with the North Atlantic Conveyor potentially slowing, we might expect Northern Europe's climate to resemble the Canadian and Russian we share longitude with, or this could be a freak, just another extreme weather system as global warming adds additional chaos to the system.

I even joke tweeted that it was the start of an new ice-age. Which is a possibility, though fairly remote… but that's the thing about tipping points in climatology, its hard to predict how they'll tip. Global warming can cause a sudden inversion that causes snow storms and sudden global cooling, there's even some evidence to support the idea that when Ice-Ages start they start hard and fast with a year without summer. We're not there yet, but that's still a worry.

So, of course on Friday night as the snow was creating the only inner city blizzard I have ever seen. Our central heating suddenly made the most hideous metallic crashing and banging noise ( downstairs it sounded like someone was knocking furniture around upstairs with a ladder).
Then we heard a noise like metal debris travelling in the water pipes which shot upstairs.
I ran upstairs and turned the boiler off.
Of course no city plumber is going to come out in a blizzard, and besides the one we called said “Not to worry, it will just be airlocks, easily dealt with by draining and refilling, noisy but not dangerous. If you need heating just turn it back on, it will be fine."
Only it wouldn't turn back on… The pilot had gone out and refused to stay lit as the blizzard was driving directly into the vents and kept blowing the pilot out.
It was pretty cold yesterday and colder still last night. The Mrs, both boys and I had to snuggle in one bed for warmth. The eldest one (aged 8) cannot sleep still. He wriggles, and writhes, and shudders, and twists, and snores now.
I did not sleep well, and have another similar night to face before the plumber will arrive tomorrow to take a look.
And to make matters worse, I did manage to relight the Pilot and get the boiler going again. I turned on the pump and everything worked for about thirty seconds before there was another enormous clang and the pilot light went out again. This time it relit fine and everything seemed hunky-dory… for about a minute before the clanging stated up and reached the pump. Still the pipes seemed to warm up briefly, only the pipe connected to the motor seemed very hot. The Mrs said the pump was hot, and like an idiot I touched it. Luckily we had plenty if cold water about for me to run the burn under.

Heating is off, and cool, we can't find the hot water bottles and the sun is going down.

I'm just going to the kitchen, I may be some time…