Monday 25 October 2021

The Front Room Stove.


 That's a photo of our front room stove.  One thing about living in the countryside next to the sea you can still have a domestic stove or fireplace.

Regular readers will also know we have a Stanley Mourne number 7 solid fuel range in the kitchen/dining room.  We've been thinking of changing it for an oil range.  Fuel is getting very expensive in Ireland and also in Blighty.

We use Eco blocks which are compressed wood pulping held together with lots of glue.  They are made in Eastern Europe in places like Latvia and Poland.  They are incredibly warm when the dry kindling gets them going.  We find a deposit of dust in the morning.  They cost five Euros fifty and we purchase them from a petrol station in our nearest town, Bantry.

We  are also going through a lot of logs now.   I like reading to the glimmer of the flames.  I'm on my fourth Laurie Lee book on Kindle.  It's called I Can't Stay Long.  I think he's a national literary treasure and I would love to visit Slad in Gloucestershire where he penned Cider With Rosie.  At least I can read him in front of our stove in West Cork and raise a glass to his writing.






18 comments:

  1. Your front room stove looks warm and inviting, and a nice place to sit and read nearby. I am lucky too, because my house has a fireplace. In the city where I live in California you can no longer build a house with a fireplace. Instead people have gas or electic "fires", or pellet only stoves. So I do enjoy my fireplace. I don't like government over reach, of banning things. I agree, Laurie Lee is a national treasure.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Terra. It's a good room to relax and read or watch a film on Netflix. We watched Miss Potter the other evening. It's a beautiful film about an amazing writer and illustrator. Agree with you about government over reach. There's nothing nicer than relaxing and reading in front of a real fire in Autumn and Winter!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I miss the open fire in our old house. It was warm and cosy in the winter months, but the downside was the amount of black dust that covered everything each morning. Less housework now we have just central heating radiators!

    ReplyDelete
  4. We get little dust from the stove JayCee. I like to watch the dancing flames and the wonderful aroma when we get turf or peat. I think oil is the cheapest and easiest to use but a real fire's got it's own charm and makes you warm and cosy.

    ReplyDelete
  5. We have a fire like that. It burns wood, mostly olive. I hope we don't have to light it for a few weeks yet. It's getting colder though and we have ordered our first lot of logs.
    I too like Laurie Lee. I think I've read all his books, some several times, though many years ago. I shall search out one to dip into.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Linda. I would imagine olive wood gives off delicious aromas? They burn orange wood in the Algarve. If it smells like the orange blossom in April it must be divine. I read Laurie Lee kindle books on my tablet and mobile phone on the ferry to work and back and in front of the fire when I'm at home.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I am burning eco coffee logs tonight. They give out good heat. I have kiln dried logs as well.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Just Googled coffee logs Rachel. What a brilliant idea. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  9. There is nothing finer than a warm room, a good book and a stove with windows. Here, we cut the dead trees and use them. The city cut down a huge old tree in front of the house that was nearly dead. We kept the wood. We're going into our second winter on that.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Our stove looks a bit like that, but it's mains gas. We don't use it often because the radiators are enough (gas central heating).
    Just for into, I've read that oil costs have rocketed - a blogger wrote that her last tank cost £700 last week, as opposed to £170 which had been the lowest in the last two years.

    ReplyDelete
  11. You sound very resourceful Debby. It's very relaxing to watch the flickering flames in the window of the stove and read a good book, have a drink or watch a good film.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not trying to be a smarty pants or rude, but you don't have trees where you are?

      Delete
    2. None ready to make into firewood Debby.

      Delete
  12. Hi the veg artist. Diesel and petrol prices are rocketing over here in Ireland and no doubt heating oil will follow them. We all must spend a lot of money heating our homes during Autumn and Winter.

    ReplyDelete
  13. In answer to your query about the fur in my bed, I have to hoover it out, lol
    Briony
    x

    ReplyDelete
  14. I much prefer the Stanley Mourne number 5 but then again the Stanley Mourne number 14 is excellent. By the way Northie , if you grew your own trees you would not need to buy fuel in.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Ha,ha. Where the Stanley's of Mourne come down to the tree.😊

    ReplyDelete

Bank Holiday Carboot Antiques Hunt.

 It's a Bank Holiday here in Ireland giving everyone a day off after Saint Patrick's Day. The weather forecast was not good but we s...