Coal

I bought coal today. Yes the house has central heating but I only spend any real amount of time in the lounge and I have an electric blanket to warm the bed.

I haven’t had the pleasure of real fires since I was a young boy. As of the age of about seven I was considered responsible enough to build a fire and vividly remember doing so on Saturday mornings, waiting for the television to start. You have to remember that this was in the days that between midnight and about 9 o’clock all the television showed was white noise, unless you were lucky enough to catch the Test Card.

So tomorrow I’m going to buy firelighters and find some kindling. I don’t want to have to buy that too but any wood I can find is likely to be too wet to burn.

I have visions of being sat here of a cold evening with a fire blazing to warm my heart.

Of course, getting the coal home was a task. After yesterday’s exertions with a big, heavy box, today I found myself walking up a rather steep hill with a 20 kg sack of coal thrown over a shoulder. Oh, and a bag of shopping in one hand. I am getting too old for this kind of shit. I made it home before the rain started, though. Considering how wet and stormy the weather has been here today, I think I’ve been pretty lucky to have missed getting a soaking. I wasn’t out for long but I don’t think being drenched in particularly cold rain would have helped my physical condition.

I’m fairly convinced that I don’t have Swine Flu. I don’t feel consistently ill enough to have any kind of flu, although as Polly’s noticed as well, it comes in waves. One minute we can be feeling fine, the next minute there’s a wave of…well…weakness, as much as anything. Aches appear but then fade away after a while. My recollections of seasonal flu are of feeling like death warmed up all the time. And only just with the chill taken off, at that!

The last embers of the fire are settling slowly and gradually fading from a pulsating orange to a tired ashen-white, still with ghosts of flames playing about them. I think it’s nearly time for bed. I could, of course, take the laptop with me but I only get about an hour’s usage on the battery and I can’t be arsed to carry the power cable up as well. I may have a Sunday morning in bed online, maybe but we’ll see. For now it’s time to snuggle in the warmth with a book.

Sleep well, everyone. Keep the chills away.