Personal Blogs

The trouble with entertaining is that one feels awful the next day. So not a productive morning, but after lunch we drove the van to our favourite diy shop and had some discussion with the owner about what to use in our newly converted barn to protect the wall from the heat of the wood burning stove. In the end we just went for heat resistant plasterboard and drove home with it hanging out the back of the van. There’s a lot to spare if we get it wrong the first time. In fact Philip just cut it in half and we propped it against the wall and I lit the fire. That was 4 hours ago. We brought the thermometer in and watched the temperature rise from 11 to 18 degrees as we made up the beds and had supper. The barn is filled with smoke but we are hoping that’s because it’s a new stove and not because of the builder has done something odd with the chimney pipe. It’s quite exciting, we can think of it as going on holiday. The cats are all enjoying the change of scene, they’ve already worked out how to use the new cat flap and go up the spiral stair case to the mezzanine. The stove heats the whole barn. We can even get the internet in here. We just need to collect our toothbrushes and a few basic necessities from the main house. Now we are equipped to cope with the coldest of winters without huge electricity bills.