A woman from Rochdale has taken the extraordinary decision to not dick about with the central heating thermostat.

Barbara Dickinson responded to the fact that she was feeling a little bit chilly by going upstairs and putting on one of the hundred or so woolly jumpers she has in her bedroom wardrobe.

Dickinson said “I don’t know what came over me. Usually when the temperature in the house dips below sub tropical I just dick about with thermostat until the boiler clicks on.”

“I didn’t really think about it. There I was sitting in the living room in a vest from Primark and a pair of underpants watching Phil and Holly when I thought I’d probably be a bit warmer if I put some more clothes on. It is the middle of January.”

Barbara’s husband Steve was pretty shocked by the news.

“Barbs has been known to turn thermostat up to thirty degrees in August so she can dry a pair of trousers on a radiator.”

“She called me after she’d put the jumper on, she was a bit shaken up by the whole thing. She’s not feeling herself, we’re going to try to get her booked in for a brain scan later on.”

The Worshipful Society of Women are considering expelling Barbara after this breach of protocol.

“Obviously we can’t have our members going about willy nilly not dicking about with thermostats. It’s the thin edge of the wedge, it’s a thermostat today but tomorrow it might be learning how to use the Sky remote properly or filling up the washer fluid in the car.”

Quentin D Fortesqueue is a founding editor of The Rochdale Herald. Part time amateur narcissist and full time satirist Quentin is never happier than when playing his lute and drinking a full bodied Bordeaux. He rarely plays the lute and never gets to drink Bordeaux.