Bought A Thingy To Clean The Range Out...

We bought one at long last...

There's a sort of vacuum thingy you can get to clean out a range...because a range gets choked up with thick layers of soot under the cooking plates and oodles of very fine ash fall to the bottom under the oven...they are a total nightmare to clean out properly.

The ash flies about and settles on everything...the soot gets up your nose...you have to be wearing rubber gloves with extra long sleeves to stop dirty great smudges of soot all over your arms and all in all it's a job we put off for as long as we can.

Well...Himself does.

I used to do it at one time... and cleaned the chimney while I was at it...there's something very satisfying about scrubbing away with the sweeps brushes and having lumps of clinker come clattering down...

Can't do it now of course.

If it's taking me forever to accept that there are now perfectly normal household tasks I can do no more, it's taken Himself even longer to remember that I'll be like a wet dish rag if he sends clouds of ash into the air...so I handed over a bit of my saved up pension money and he bought a cleaner this afternoon...it had twenty euro knocked off the price 'cos there was an offer on...all to the good.

It's just like a basic Hoover really, but made from steel with an enormous filter inside it.

Haven't tried it out yet though 'cos it was freezing cold when we came home so the range had to be lit there and then...otherwise my teeth would have chattered and I'd have started whinging...

You can buy super-dooper ranges in a different colours...they have several ovens and an overhead rack to dry dish towels or socks...or keep plates warm. There's a gorgeous one in a deep green that has hefty lids on top of the cooking plates, much the same as an Aga...we have a little Stanley though, because however much I might lust after a deep green one with loads of ovens, it would look awful silly in our little sitting-room...

There is an art to cooking in a Stanley oven which I've never grasped...but the top is excellent for boiling and simmering...and of course the kettle is always a minute away from being ready to make tea. It runs three radiators very efficiently and heats the water to almost scalding point...

You might well be wondering why we have a gas cooker in the kitchen...mainly for the oven actually and if you're chopping and stirring it's much easier having the worktop close.

Which is why I'd like the wall between kitchen and sitting room knocked down and everytime I mention it to anyone there is much sucking on teeth and heavy sighs...workmen mutter darkly about RSJ's while they stand with their arms folded and legs spread, in the fashion of practically all workmen everywhere when faced with a job they deem to be difficult...