Saturday 21 January 2023
Our first visitor, Kyla, arrived at Lockerbie station yesterday afternoon, a beautiful, sunny day. Chris and I realised we haven’t socialised at all in 2023 so I think we’ve been talking non-stop to (at?!) her. While sitting in the Tesco Lockerbie carpark eating a warmed-up sausage roll (me) and a haggis and HP Sauce roll (Kyla; getting straight into all things Scottish), I asked her what she expected of the scenery on the way to the house. As with us when we first ‘discovered’ this area, I think she expected slightly more ordinary countryside (from the perspective of the southeast of England), though said she thought there would be more of a sense of openness and sky. I think, also like us, she wasn’t expecting so much space, so many trees and expanses of trees and beautiful scenery. I still think it’s like a more low-key and lower Highlands with fewer people and hardly any tourists. I enjoyed the drive back with her and her thoughts on the scenery.
We stopped off at the Samye Ling Tibetan temple and had a peaceful walk around the grounds and along the river. As we’d suspected, she had had no idea there would still be snow around, which seemed to be a very happy discovery for her. We then stopped off at our nearest (very small) loch and did one of my favourite walks. By then, it was late afternoon and the sun was going down and brightening the sky with orange. The snow up there was mainly only trodden in by animals and the path we walked through the woods; we were the first people to walk there. The snow was perfect. The top inch or so was feather-weight crystals that you could scoop up and blow away like sparkly confetti. The two or three inches below were frosted snow on what is usually quite bouncy moss and grass that made a wonderful sound to walk on. I have always loved snow, water and conifer trees, and can now add moss, lichen and fungi to that list, but that very short pathway is a magical wonderland, and even better for having the glorious late afternoon sunlight.
We arrived at the house. The electrician had sorted the boiler and the heating had been on, but it wasn’t particularly warm. After tea and sweet treats (mainly Tunnock’s; keeping up the Scottish food theme), I lit the multi-fuel burner. For a while, the stove was burning (wood and coffee logs) and there was a degree of warmth in front of the fire. We were all wrapped in woollen blankets and it was sort of cosy. All good. I went into the kitchen to start dinner. I was browning some chicken in the pressure cooker prior to sealing it up to cook, some lentils were simmering on the hob – the smoke (or heat or fire, or whatever it is) alarm went off. I really couldn’t understand why, in view of there being no smoke/heat/fire from what I was cooking. Chris got up to fan the alarm. It continued pipping and beeping furiously. I fanned the other alarm. It kept up the pipping. It had been set off once before (a genuine smoking pan – roast duck; so much smoke) but gone off fairly quickly with flapping and the front door open. But, no, this time it wasn’t going off. I had a panic about the chimney being on fire from the multi-fuel burner so had a look outside. Fine. Kyla was busy Googling how to turn off an alarm that wouldn’t go off. Chris then decided to turn off the power to the alarm at the fuse box, so opened the door to the utility room and was confronted by very, very, very hot steam in the steam room utility room, coming from the (closed) fuse box and electrics cupboard. Panic.
Turns out steam from the burner, which is once how the back boiler would have been heated, was coming out of an unsealed pipe. It was extremely hot, and in a cupboard with electrics, fuse box, etc. It was, obviously, scary and I think that you see steam and think fire, but we figured out fairly quickly that it was to do with the heat from the burner. We opened the burner door; fortunately, there wasn’t much left to burn. We left the door open to spread the heat, had the back door open and the steam slowly but surely stopped. At one point, we thought about putting out the fire with water, but realised that would create even more steam. My first reaction to dousing the fire with water was dismay, at having to put out the fire I had got going so well. Not the best instinct in the midst of a steam incident. Anyway, the alarm was silenced once we’d opened the cupboard door and the burner door. It will surprise no one that that’s probably me done with multi-fuel burners and fire lighting. Far too much drama and excitement. It was also a sobering reminder that, had we had a fire, we are a long way from a fire station. We do, however, currently have a hot tub full of 1,700 litres of cold water and a selection of buckets and bowls.
The hot tub man appears to have badly severed part of a finger so won’t be able to service the hot tub and make sure it’s fine for us to use. Chris and I have a theory that the filling of the hot tub had something to do with the boiler issue (there is a degree of logic to our theory but I’d even bore myself going into all that again). I am wondering if the hot tub will end up being the new multi-fuel burner.
This morning, it’s Kyla’s birthday and I am hoping she’s currently fast asleep rather than frozen solid in bed. It’s a frosty morning, the sun will be up in ten minutes and I can already see a pink tinge to the sky. We have a very Scottish (ie meaty) breakfast ahead of us to set us up for the day.