Sunday 27 November 2022
I came home without Swarfega and without a desk from yesterday’s furniture and Swarfega shopping trip. However, a desk (and four other pieces of furniture) will be arriving in just over a week. Hurrah. I know I have seen Swarfega for sale somewhere but I couldn’t find any yesterday. I gave my hands even more of a scrub, soaked them in hot soapy water, scrubbed more – I still have coal trace.
The bloody fire. We let it go out yesterday. On arrival back home at around 16:45, unsurprisingly the house was cold, colder than usual. I decided to clean out the burner and start from scratch with a burst of heat from the one bag of seasoned logs we had. I cleaned the stove, including a very satisfactory finish-off with a Henry vacuum cleaner, Googled a slight variation on fire lighting, “how to light a log burner”, and, hey presto, easy-peasy, we had a roaring log fire. It looked glorious and emitted a pleasing warmth. Very proud moment. But, oh my, logs burn so much faster than the coal stuff we had been using. It was apparent we only had enough logs for another hour, the hour we’d be sitting in the kitchen to eat dinner.
We have both been optimistically touching radiators as we walk past, getting to the stage where one that is cold rather than ice-cold is a source of great enthusiasm. Would you believe it, that hour or so of roaring fire was heating the boiler enough to actually transform the radiators to warm. I decided to search YouTube for a stove-lighting demonstration of someone lighting a burner with ‘coal brick things’ that also had to heat a boiler. I finally found the ‘right’ video. Last night, we had warm to hot radiators all round and the house is actually pretty much a minimally-comfortable temperature. It was a joy, a relief and a delight, but I’m sorry to say it did not make up for the week of being largely cold. The plumber is coming to assess the set-up today (yes, a Sunday) and I will have zero remorse or nostalgia for connecting the boiler to electricity rather than the multifuel stove. Definitely something to look forward to, heat at the push of a button. Sigh.
As we drove home, after our shopping trip, at dusk, we expected to see badgers, deer, owls and a raft of wildlife. We might have seen one bat flying erratically and very fast and there were plenty of moth-type things. Otherwise, nothing. Mildly disappointing. One of my biggest night-time-driving paranoias around Scotland is an animal running in front of the car. We bought some very simple – who knew such a thing existed (other than the friend who told me about them … well, and probably the people who told him. Anyway) – deer whistles. They are very simple plastic tube things you affix to the grill at the front of your car. When you are driving at thirty miles per hour or more, they emit a whistle that apparently humans can’t hear but deer and other animals can, enough to keep them away. I am not convinced, it seems too straightforward. And with dark, unlit, winding, sometimes single-track roads, sometimes all of the above and with a long, steep slope on one side; like I’m going to be driving more than 30mph.
Our tour of antique/second-hand furniture shops yesterday didn’t need to progress past Hawick, our first stop. I think I’m pleased with what we bought but old furniture costs significantly more now than when we were last buying furniture and it isn’t flat-packed to enable immediate home delivery. My desk is very large, in three segments with a lot of drawers, and cost £350. All other cabinets and drawer units cost between £190 and £350, though most around the £300 mark. I am reminded how easy it is to underestimate the expense of moving.
Today, it’d be great if we could make the living room look less temporary and a walk would be good, especially if it isn’t raining.