Winter arrives

we woke this morning to snow on the ground. The last few days have been much colder but we have had never ending rain. The mud is awful just now. We are trying to not let the dogs out on the grass as it is being churned up so they have to make do with the back patio. Ok for little Frank but Bruno is a very big dog and needs more room to run. We take them for a walk each evening that helps.
The house is very cold too. Every year I say it will be the last cold winter but here I am after six years and still single glazed Windows and no insulation. The granite walls just have a layer of paint so as soon as the fire goes out we are cold! At the moment the house is cold despite both the wood burner and wood burning oven being on! Fortunately upstairs is insulated and boarded so we are warm once in bed. This is because it was a hay loft and we put in two bedrooms and bathrooms shortly after buying the property. It was because of needing to set up a business to get health cover that we switched to converting a barn into a Gite. Now we are trying to finish the barn our eldest daughter and husband will live in. Then it is the other two Gites to finish and finally our house! Sometimes I get very down about it but it doesn't last.
We have finally sorted out our top up health insurance. We go to sign the contracts on Tuesday. This is because the state only provides 70% and we pay the rest. For minor things this is ok but we have been aware for some time that a hospital stay would be very expensive. As P is 60 this year and I am only a year behind we had to to take out insurance. It will cost us €110 a month so I have agreed to take a drop in housekeeping of €50 each month to cover my half. I feel much happier with this in place.
So far this year we have only sold three weeks with our Gite. It is a worry but we hope the bookings will start coming in soon. We need the money from this to fund the next project!