Friday, January 08, 2010

The Blast furnace


Actually, we don't really have one but yesterday I came down to the Raeburn roaring away for no apparent reason and the oven hot. I mean really hot. Hot enough for me to wonder about getting too close in case there was terminal melt-down or something. Since the air tempertature up here is a tad chilly at the moment I basked in the heat of the Warming Room, cooked porridge on the stove in about 10 secs flat then spent the next hour cleaning off the burnt bits from the saucepan. Ah well.
At the other end of the day, after I had carried a full inspection of my work kit, cleaning and polishing all the bits and logging all the important details I settled down into the Summer Parlour to light the stove there and enjoy a quiet evening with my Eve. Only the flippin chimney must have got cold so the room just filled with smoke. It just did not want to go up the chimney. I was wondering if the crow sat atop the chimney pot was frantically flapping its wings and pushing the smoke down again so I'd heat the thing up more. I think it was a crow anyway. It might have been a seagull - a sooty one.
Anyway, I had to get the stove hot to get the smoke to go up the chimney - and that was a strain since the air was now still, the chimney for this fire is at the other end of or little house from the Raeburn and it didn't want to 'go' as it were. I'm told it's the air pressure as well as the way the air is going - oh, or the phases of the moon and the state of the economy. so it had little chance. However, it did get nice and hot in the end - just as it was time for bed. Life eh?

The snap I carefully selected to show you sheep. White ones. Not proper Hebridean ones but ones that are the most popular type hereabouts. And a fishing boat in the bay - possibly fishing although I'm reliably told they shouldn't be as it is banned there at the moment. Perhaps they were just having a rest!

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