I am very jealous to have missed the installation of this fine animal. A 7 KW Jotel wood and coal burning stove. Not a small investment but a game changer for the house. Now the sitting room where we have the television and which joins onto the conservatory and my study can be toasty warm. The old gas fire has been ripped out and in its place this fine stove. Why there was a crabby old gas fire in a beautiful 150 year old barn conversion I don't know - a lack of rural imagination.
The flu runs up through our bedroom above so provides some heat through vents up there and then the smoke comes out of a silver shiny space age chimney on the roof of our barn. The only other place we have to burn logs is in the more formal dining room or the "Heathrow Ballroom" as Jane calls it. That room is unused to date but I expect Xmas will change all that. Furniture has been shipped back from Dubai and by Xmas it will be ready for 8 of us for the big day. My brother Mark, Sarah and their two daughters will be with us. I am already planning the wine in my head and the boardgames (a small obsession of mine).
I am very excited about creating wood piles, seasoning logs and staying warm, I believe the conservatory and study will benefit from the warmth as well. While I have had coal fires before I have never owned a wood burning stove. We are getting ready for it...Winter is coming !
I originally thought the chimney should be mat black but Jane has explained to me that the silver chimney reflects whatever the sky is doing and blends in. It's so true - it will pick up the blue or a cloud pattern. The chimney darkens as the sky darkens. I am glad I was kept away from the decision - I was sure that I had asked for it to be powder coated mat black which would have been so wrong - in any event that request was ignored by the people who installed it. Johnsons in Bromyard did the honors. It's good to shop local with all things. If you don't use the businesses in your small towns you will end up with 3 charity shops and a Tesco local. You need to the money in the local economy.
I need to invest in a hydraulic log splitter. These are serious bits of kit that make an axe redundant and will probably save my toes one of these days. There are many fun log splitting videos on You tube and after watching a dozen this log splitter is the one I need, It should make short work of the disparate pile gathering in the mower store. I will not however buy it from Amazon. I have started to use the local Husqvarma/garden equipment store in Bromyard. That again is really important and there is a good economy in having advice, servicing and support nearby. Jeff Beezos will not take a call when my Husqvarma strimmer won't start.
The first self sufficient loop has been closed. All very exciting. We are making real progress toward getting the place ready for "R" day - currently planned as 5 April 2024. I will be 55 on 24 April 2024 and much as I would love to struggle on to 60 I'd like to have half of this decade for nothing more than bread making and log splitting, Equally I think September 2023 will mark 30 years in my firm (if I don't get hoofed out before then) and that to my mind seems like enough time in big Law. I am still really enjoying it - I have had a new lease of life recently at work - but I think I would like to retire at the same age my father did, He is now 80 and has now has spent more time enjoying BP retirement benefits than he did working there (25 years).
I chalked up 26 years a few weeks ago. I had a year off before Cambridge when I travelled in the Middle East (I was always coming back). I also did a year off after law school and worked in a furniture factory of all places. I learned some basic marquetry by the end. Since then it's been 26 years with the same firm I trained with - I was lucky enough to find a route through to partnership. It is a very long time in the same "institution" but it has seen us all well and got me out to Dubai as the firm expanded and went global. Its a long way from the car accidents in Dewsbury County Court I started with.
It will be good, eventually, to spend a year or two doing nothing more than worrying about where the heat is coming from, which is the next soup to make and what variety of first early potatoes will taste the best. My plan is to try and get everything to "launch" point by that "R" day. The first couple of years the plan is to spend as little as possible and to try some real self-sufficiency. I will post again soon about the vegetable beds which will play a big part of that. But for now we really can heat ourselves. We will always need the Aga in Winter for the hot water and the odd burst in the Summer from the boiler when the Aga is out but I have no fear off being cold. I hope the wood is big enough - but of course all the Laurel has to go and it should burn well. The idea of slipping out into the cold to gather some logs from a tree I have cut down for all the right reasons, and chopped and seasoned and then selecting a piece of music and settling into my favorite chair with a glass of wine is very alluring, Sadly I cannot afford to stop work yet while the kids need supporting through school and university and the mortgage needs finishing off and the final savings laid down, But good things are worth waiting for and in the meantime I have the best of all worlds. I will be ready by 2024 I am sure for the new primary economy. Enough with international services. Tree, log, fire, heat,
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