The inglenook today - 9th November 2009
I’ve been waiting for today all year. No, it’s not my birthday or that of a loved one. It’s not the end of some arduous year long task. It’s not even a specific date related thing at all. It’s the day when you have to find your hat, scarf and gloves before you go outside. The day when you thrill at living in a house with a wood-burning stove – the first really cold day of the year.
I should perhaps explain that ‘today’ has not always been so welcomed. When we first moved here five years ago, we had no heating at all. Now, while we had one large inglenook in the sitting room and uncovered another fireplace in the dining room, they were out of bounds – thatched cottages not really liking fires in unused, unswept, unlined chimneys. The old lady who had lived here before us, had survived by using an equally old, solid fuel Rayburn and as we didn’t fancy carbon monoxide poisoning either, that too was verboten. So for our first two winters we survived by using inefficient and expensive oil fuelled radiators and shared body heat. All very romantic apart from the thermals, hats, gloves and hot water-bottles.
After much hard labour and cunning slate tiling to hide some gruesome cast concrete, the wood burners were installed in the winter of our second year. Oh the wonder of heat! However, in order to keep the house warm all day a fair amount of fetching and carrying and ash emptying had to go on. Still at least you could watch TV without wearing a coat. The house finally seemed to come to life again and an ancient connection with centuries of previous inhabitants was restored.
Then I became pregnant. And with the bolshy, pragmatism that pregnancy bestows, demanded central heating. Unfortunately, as the cottage is listed it was not quite as straight forward as simply calling in a plumber. So things dragged on for longer than they should while we discussed various options with conservation officers and took photos and drew plans and filled out forms and waited and waited and waited. The boiler finally roared into the life on the 13th December 2007, the day before I went into labour and little Miss B appeared.
So now we live in luxury with heat at the touch of a button or the strike of a match. However, while I now take the central heating for granted, I still glow with elemental satisfaction every time I light the fire. Wood-burners are truly wonderful things. They fight off the chill and gloom of the shortest days. They can make you feel useful and efficient while just lounging around and feeding it the odd log. And as if any further proof of their superiority was needed, whoever heard of anyone ever sitting round a radiator to tell a story.
Moving day and just a little work to do.
8 bin bags full of birds nests that came out of the chimneys.
“Mature garden with vegetable plot and fruit cages to rear.”
