Fire, fire..

THE STAFF in turn are trying to get the stove going, but not with much success. The wood’s too wet is the excuse. A sad tale! When My Good Lady and I were first married, we lived in a cottage that needed piles of logs which I had to chop with my little hatchet. We always managed, so why can’t they? We never even needed firelighters – indeed, we couldn’t afford such extravagance. Someone suggests putting a squirt of petrol onto the fire, and Gaz, the manager/chef of the Pub, recalls an incident from his misspent youth…

“We’d been out drinking,” he says, with a wistful smile on his face. “We got back to this friend’s farmhouse at about two in the morning. We tried to get the fire going – it was a wood-burning thing, like this. No joy. So, my mate poured some petrol on it. Just a drop he thought, but he set the chimney on fire! We got a knocking on the door from neighbours; they’d seen a blast of flame about five feet high shooting up from the top of the chimney! They nearly called the fire brigade!”

Meanwhile, the fire in the present stove is all but dead. Little B puts on his scarf, to help keep him warm, and I’m wondering about slipping on my coat when Mr P, the music teacher and keen cyclist, comes in, complaining about how warm it is, here, in the Geriatrics’ Corner. He strips off down to his t-shirt, as if just to make us all feel like wimps!