Last year we converted our little duck egg blue cuissiniere from wood to coal. Sounds complicated, but not. When we hauled her out of a barn covered in dust we saw that she came with a coal conversion kit in terms of plates and doors that slide into the wood burning box and when we decided that we could no longer keep her alight on little bits of wood we bought a bag of coal. Our lives were transformed in terms of paying homage and falling to our knees in front of our kitchen heat source every time we forgot to shove another block of wood in. The coal burns longer and is much more forgiving if you forget to pay her a visit. This Summer we started to look for a reliable source of coal, cheap and in huge quantities and hit lucky after a plea for help on the Anglo Info site which we expats moan about for it’s unbelievable moronic following at times but always turn to when we need help. Gary and Rachel came to our help and said that they had a ton spare out of their prepaid co-operative and would be happy to sell us a ton with a view to us joining the club next year. Gary arrived bristling with muscle to shovel our ton into our coal stash. This coal is off the coalface coal and Gary promised that we will never want to burn anything else when we see the economics and cleanness of this type of coal. So the fire is lit and in six days of day and night heat we have used just one buckets worth and we are not only warm and snug and cooking already, but smiley and smug that we just may have found the solution to what will be an annual problem…how to keep warm on the cheap.
It is that time of year again, and we five fell to our knees in Jacqueline’s orchard to pick up this huge pile of apples for the cider year of 2011. Jacqueline had to go away to Paris to see her children and I was put in charge of the baskets and bags and keeping count of the apples we put on the pile. We found it very hard this year firstly the joy of working with Jacqueline is no longer there as she has disappeared for the second year running now and hard because we are not getting any younger and if you are not bending, lifting and generally acting like farmers all year the two days that you enthusiastically devote to apple picking is hard, painful and after six hours starts to feel futile and the taste of the nectar of life in the guise of rough old cider starts to wear a little thin. We did what was necessary and finished off in our orchard to add our apples to the pile. We actually picked on my birthday yesterday so that we could be sure to beat any bad weather. We all knew that feeling the way we did a wet or cold day would just finish us off.
I did however have a good birthday and came home to a barrage of best wishes and love on face book and email. My pile of cards was more than I deserved and a line of love running long the length of the mantle piece is just great. I spoke to Australia, Canada and Southampton and that gave me the greatest of pleasure that my kids are there, and for one moment in time all thinking the same thing….Happy Birthday Mum.
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