Well, I've bitten the bullet ...

... and lit the fire up here this evening.

Coming back from radioing, the temperature up here was 12.4°C - that's about the limit but what clinched it was the fact that I had Sunday's pizza and garlic bread to cook, and it's cheaper (like "cost = nil") to cook them in the little oven on top of the woodstove. In no time at all the temperature up here was a balmy (or is that "barmy"?) 20.4°C and the pizza and garlic bread were done to a turn.

Not only that, the kettle on the top of the stove heated the water to a respectable washing-up type of temperature and so this is not only the first day of heat, it's also the first day of no bottle gas. A bottle of gas costs me about €32 and lasts me roughly 200 days. That's about €0:16 per day that I'm saving.

Add to that the fact that a bottle of gas (at €32) lasted about 20 days in the old gas heater, then I've saved €1:60 per day on heating - a total of €1:76 per day in total. The stove cost me €279, which means that at €1:76 per day it will be paid for in about 160 days. Ans as I use the stove about 100 days per year, it means that sometime round about Christmas it will be paid off.

A shrewd move, this stove.

On the way back from Liz and Terry's there was a beautiful sunset and so I stopped to take a photo. There's an old saying around here tp the effect that
"Red sky at night - shepherd's delight"
"Red sky in the morning - Gouttieres is on fire".

We'd been radioing today, and that wasn't without incident Tartasse forgot that we were coming (despite me reminding them on Friday) and so nothing was prepared, which meant that we had to make it up as we went along. But at Radio Arverne the wheels fell off and we had to re-record one of the programmes a couple of times, as well as do some heavy editing, before we had a decent take.

But there's a reason for that. Liz didn't have much sleep thanks to a hyperactive mind, and I had about one hour because, presumably, I have a guilty conscience about something. Walking around the area here at 05:15 in the freezing weather because I can't sleep - that's a new one, isn't it?

I also fixed the non-working flasher on Caliburn and readjusted the fan belt on Liz's car.

It's been a busy day today and I'm off to bed now - thooughly exhausted