It was a very cold clear day with ice warnings on the Calder at Macedon, and my car's snow warning went on when the outside temperature dipped below 3.5 degrees.
I was a bit concerned about Black Ice, so stayed in the left with most of the other cars. In fact, you could see that the road had dried on the left lane with all of the cars travelling across it. The right lane on the other hand was still wet, and perhaps even icy. Justin said that he thought he still saw some frost on a verge in Kyneton. So didn't risk it
 |
| dry on one side, wet and icy the other? |
But, back to the chimneys, we use the dining room fireplace a bit over Winter, and have not had it swept before, and who knows when any of the rest of them were swept last....
We don't want to have the party and have the house burn down...
Anyway, Al arrived with a truck load of chimney cleaning equipment - Swiss and precise, although might look a bit of a mess in the photo. He started in the dining room, and made sure that the dust could not escape by taping down a sheet, and then stuck up a bendy pole with various brushes on the end and tugged and scraped etc.
Brought down 3 or 4 bucket loads of ash - mostly the black bad stuff. Said it was black because wet or green wood had been used, or the fire just wasn't hot enough. He said you should have white or grey ash. He also advised us to light a newspaper taper and stick it up the chimney each time we started a fire - having the kindling ready below. That way we would warm the chimney and have a better fire.
Al ended up staying for hours, did the kitchen oven (and fixed up around the flue) And the 2 other downstairs fireplaces, the red room and the big room upstairs. He told us that the Lime Parfait room had the chimney blocked, so he couldn't do that.
And in the meantime, Justin was finishing off the Lime Parfait room, and I was gardening
Finished off around 4.30 or so again, and I jumped in the bath again around 5 - had enjoyed it so much last time -warming me up, that I did it again and read the weekend paper in there. Stayed in about an hour, by which stage I had stored up enough heat, or that's the way it felt, so I was warm for the rest of the night. Justin wasn't, he should have had a bath.
And as per last time, another cheese & biscuit etc picnic dinner in the big room upstairs while we watched a dvd - Brothers.
Sunday morning was frosty again, and the day was cloudy, so psychologically if not actually colder than yesterday.
Puffs of visible breath at breakfast - you can see it diagonally to the right from Justin's mouth
Given the cold and grey, I stayed inside, and tidied up/cleaned in preparation for the party.
Polished up the copper kettle - although it can still do with some more polishing. No Alladin popped out though
And Justin finally unveiled the Lime Parfait room - I'd waited long enough. He still has some more work to do in it, but it's pretty much finished, and we can put the furniture back in. He wanted to keep some of the original colours ie the dark blue green trim on the skirting board
I guess it looks pretty good, we'll see what the guests say
No comments:
Post a Comment