Cooking.

In response to demand by my readers...... well OK it was one person who asked, I thought today's post would show the range where I struggle to cook. It's not actually this Victorian range. This was installed by the previous occupants, at great expense (I believe about £1000 !! ), up in the barbecue area where the swimming pool was. We did look into ripping it out and selling it but it would have needed some major demolition and wouldn't have fetched very much anyway. These stoves were not designed to be outside, hence the rust, and it would have been the job of a hardworking housewife or maidservant to keep it clean and polished. I could just give it a coat of rust paint but as it is fully functional with a proper chimney the next owners of this place might want to use it so I may just give it a going over with a wire brush.
This is the Rayburn that I have a love/hate relationship with. I love the way it keeps the kitchen warm, provides unlimited hot water and dries my washing ....... BUT I hate the way it is a nightmare to cook on , the fact that it burns fuel 24/7 and the way that any food or grease splashes get heat sealed on. It is all enamelled so you can't use anything too vigorous such as wire wool and there don't seem to be any products that remove baked on grease from a too hot to touch surface. Any ideas anyone ? I even went into a posh Aga showroom to ask about cleaning but they didn't have any ideas. Perhaps most Aga owners have plenty of time or cleaning ladies. All I can do is scub with a kitchen scrub/sponge and very carefully scrape with a sharp knife but it is too easy to scratch the enamel surface.
Cooking is a bit of a challenge. There is a large hotplate on the top, one side of which is a bit hotter than the other but it never gets hot enough to fry anything. You are supposed to be able to adjust the oil flow and thus the temperature but it takes at least half an hour to react and is unpredictable so I generally adjust my cooking times to the temperature it is running at. The oven is the small door with the gauge on the front and yes it is rather small. The more you put into the oven the lower the temp drops. The temp is also dependant on the direction of the wind. The small oven below is only a warmer, good for drying wet boots and gloves, when it is open the cats often creep in with the boots. The 3rd door opens on the oil burner parts. This is a modern rayburn and uses heating oil (kerosene). It is designed to run a central heating system as well but that didn't work for the previous owners and we were advised to put in a separate boiler and closed system for this size of house. To supplement the rayburn I have a microwave oven and a large electric hot plate set into the work surface. Cooking on the rayburn needs a lot of forward planning and some luck.
Peter hates the rayburn with a vengeance because about every 6 months the wicks get sooted up and he has to dismantle and clean it. The heavy hotplate has to be taken off so that all the soot can be hoovered up and the oil burner has to be taken to pieces, cleaned , new wick put in and then replaced. It often takes several attempts to get the oil flowing evenly as the levels have to be just right and everything is in a confined space. This usually takes a whole day and leaves Peter bad tempered with skinned knuckles.
The cats on the other hand love the rayburn as somewhere warm to snuggle up to. Smudge in particular likes to lie stretched out with his tummy against the rayburn to get the full benefit of the heat. You can always tell when it is getting cold because the kitchen starts to be populated by cats looking for a warm place (only 4 now but we did have 6 and a big dog).
Other details, I did all the tiling in the kitchen using basic white tiles topped with Laura Ashley borders (I made matching curtains from LA fabric, I do like a touch of Laura Ashley around the place.) I also painted the hen, copied from a kitchen magazine, and the sweet peas to match the border and I used wavy dark blue tiles set at an angle to make the splash back. Oh and the floor is cork tiling on concrete. We put down cork tiles in our old house and loved them so much we did the same here. If for any reason we were to lose both the oil and electricity the wood burner in the sitting room has a large flat top which gets more than hot enough to cook on. And those are the cooking facilities in this Devon farmhouse. It will probably take a while to adjust back to a normal oven that comes on at the flick of a switch when we do eventually move.

Wetter But Warmer.

The kitchen is looking a lot tidier as today's rain was not conducive to being outside weeding and instead I spent time doing housework. I wouldn't mind housework so much if A. other people did some as well, Ha-Ha, and B. other members of this family could learn to put things away though I do have to admit at being almost as bad as everyone else. It's just that I'm the one left to sort everything out as no one else minds.

Once I had driven up the hill at lunchtime it was straight into the clouds. Lashing rain, mud pouring down the sides of the road and the occasional flooded section. Below the cloud level everything still looked rather misty. With the rain came warmer temperatures so I've been able to turn off the central heating in the day. Tonight's weather forecast is for more snow but luckily not in our corner of the country.

Worlds In Miniature.

I've spent the whole day weeding. I find it very hard to stick to doing one thing and keep seeing other jobs that need doing but today I stayed on task and cleared several of the heather banks. I did have a senior moment after lunch when I spent about 10 mins looking for my secateurs. I'd raced indoors at lunchtime because it was raining , leaving them - so I thought on a bush. I did find them eventually, under some leaves lower down the bank. There have been a few arial interruptions today. First it was a low flying fighter jet plane probably on its way over to Wales where they are allowed to skim the deserted mountains. Then a helicopter flying low. It was the red air-ambulance helicopter, (funded by charity and very necessary in this rural location). It flew low over the valley up to Indicott, turned and came back at about tree height, turned at the corner of the garden, slid over Paul's hill (I'd walked up the road by this time) and flew at minimum height towards East Down. Then it came back and headed off north, they were obviously having difficulty finding the place they had been called to. I hope the casualty got to hospital safely.

Having decided not to show boring weeding pictures instead I thought I'd show some rock pools from yesterday.

Snakelocks sea anemones. I have to admit to teasing them a bit with some dried seaweed which they grabbed in an alarming manner. I didn't use my finger because the book says that they do have a painful sting.

A more gentle beadlet sea anemone sharing its pool with at least 5 kinds of molluscs.

Finally, a group of dog whelks guarding their eggs with another beadlet sea anemone. All these rock pools were no more than 2 or 3 inches across but contained a wealth of life. Isn't nature wonderful ?