Coal day

We had our first coal delivery today. I think I have only seen coal at old time amusement parks. "This is what Santa used to put in your stocking if you were a bad little girl". It was brought to our house by a short man, bald, with clichéd black smears on his face, black hands and a once piece overall suit covered in coal dust. He lugged huge 50 kilo sacs of black nuggets into our store. It is located on the side of our house and is a square box, essentially, made from stones cemented together. It has a sliding door on the front that disintegrated when we opened it and a metal top which has the appearance of a rusted colander. We spent a few hours trying to light our Rayburn, a common first timers affliction. Notorious for firing up problems, our Regent didn’t disappoint.

We stoked, we lit, we put in the coal.. open both doors while lighting, close right away…. Open one door, close the other… less coal, more wood, more wood, throw in another fire starter……

We had shut off the hot water heater (as the Rayburn heats our water) and were starting to wonder if we were going to have to heat our nightly water on the stove. Finally, after a lot of turning of knobs and shifting of flues we got it started. We stood, leaned up against the rail, and kissed. It is one of the reasons I wanted to move here and after long last I have the somewhat middle class iconic stove working in my kitchen. The kitchen has the faint smell of coal smoke in it and is finally warmer than the outside of the house. Now to figure out how to cook with it.