… fire that I have ever made at Cecile’s today. It burned beutifully and did everything that it was supposed to do. I only wish that it had burned like that during the bitter winter of 2013.
Mind you, it wasn’t easy.
I lit the fire as soon as I went round there, and promptly filled the house with a thick oily smoke. Nothing was coming out of the chimney at all.
I had to let the fire burn itself out (by which time Cecile and her mother had arrived) and then I dismantled the chimney pipes. And no-one was more surprised than me when, after much ramming, prodding and poking, an enormous dead bird fell out. It really was a monster bird and he was well-wedged in the chimney. I’ve no idea how come he came to be stuck there.
Reassembling the chimney pipes was much more complicated, and we ended up moving the stove so that the pipes lined up better. And it was during this manoeuvre that I was drowned in a load of soot (wo much for my gorgeous heated shower in the verandah this lunchtime).
It turns out that with the dead bird blocking the chimney, the soot had falled into the trap and this was blocked solid. Chiseling it all out, I noticed that was a small vent in the trap, presumably to provide an updraught for lifting the smoke up. Unblocking and cleaning the chimney pipes solved many of the problems, but I reckon that it was cleaning out the vent in the trap that gave it the finishing touch.
Yes, the best fire that I have ever seen out there at La Batisse.
So what was I up to this morning then?
I’ve started to put the paint on the wall this morning. Everywhere that I papered on Tuesday now has the first coat of paint.
It’s lighter than the paint colour on the landing. That’s because I found another 5-litre tub of white paint, so I mixed three litres of that into the yellow. It looks much better now and I can’t wait to see it with the second coat on.
I had enough time to go round and mask off the rest of the bedroom. That’s a task well-done and so I can crack on with the rest of the first coat tomorrow
And then I had my lovely shower.
I also found time to do a machine-load of washing at Cecile’s, for which I’m grateful.
And it is nice to see Cecile and her mum again after all of this time.
