… the bullet and lit the fire up here this evening.
Coming back from radioing, the temperature up here was 12.4°C – that’s about the limit for heat but what clinched it was the fact that I had Sunday’s pizza and garlic bread to cook.
It’s cheaper (like “cost = nil”) to cook them in the little oven on top of the woodstove. In no time at all the temperature up here was a balmy (or is that “barmy”?) 20.4°C and the pizza and garlic bread were done to a turn.
Not only that, the kettle on the top of the stove heated the water to a respectable washing-up type of temperature and so this is not only the first day of heat for winter 2012, it’s also the first day of no bottle gas.
A bottle of gas for cooking costs me about €32 and lasts me roughly 200 days. That’s about €0:16 per day that I’m saving.
Add to that the fact that a bottle of gas (at €32) lasted about 20 days in the old gas heater, then I’ve saved €1:60 per day on heating – a total of €1:76 per day in total.
The stove cost me €279, which means that at €1:76 per day it will be paid for in about 160 days. And as I use the stove about 100 days per year, it means that sometime round about Christmas it will be paid off.
A shrewd move, purchasing this woodstove.
We’d been radioing today, and that wasn’t without incident.
Radio Tartasse at Marcillat en Combraille forgot that we were coming (despite me reminding them on Friday) and so nothing was prepared, which meant that we had to make it up as we went along.
But at Radio Arverne in Gerzat the wheels fell off completely and we had to re-record one of the programmes a couple of times, as well as do some heavy editing, before we had a decent take.
But there’s a reason for that.
Liz didn’t have much sleep thanks to a hyperactive mind, and I had about one hour because, presumably, I have a guilty conscience about something or other.
Walking outside beating the bounds of my property here at 05:15 in the freezing weather because I can’t sleep – that’s a new one, isn’t it?
On the way back from Liz and Terry’s as it was going dark, I stopped at my favourite spot – the birdwatching site at the back of St Gervais d’Auvergne – yet again.
We were being presented with the most magnificent sunset as the sun slowly sank beneath the heavy clouds.
If ever a moment called for the camera, then this was it.
It was even more interesting to stand there in the dark and watch all of the lights swich on one by one, like some kind of carpet of bulbs spreading out across the landscape.
And of course it called for a repetition of that well-worn old saying –
“Red sky at night – shepherd’s delight”
“Red sky in the morning – Les Ancizes is on fire”.
And that’s not all of it either. I also fixed the non-working flasher on Caliburn and readjusted the fan belt on Liz’s car.
It’s been a busy day today and I’m off to bed now – thoroughly exhausted.
