Mattiniero...

... is, as I recently learned, Italian for ‘early bird’. I was down at Sylvia and Louisa’s shop first thing to minimise my aerosol intake risk. They were surprised to see me at 7.40.

The sunrise is now close to its southern maximum and it took me aback just how far round it is. The plumbers are occassioning us to rise early and extract what we need for the day from the kitchen before we retreat above the zone of separation. Full marks to them as they work with masks on.

Yesterday’s progress is very impressive.

It’s strange to be putting in a carbon guzzling boiler when all the talk is of heat pumps and disconnecting or rather not connecting new build houses to the gas infrastructure, as they are now doing in the Netherlands. At least wood pellets are relatively sustainable and generally use waste wood. Hopefully local sourcing of top quality pellets will become possible in the future. For the last three years all our heat has come from wood we have felled and processed. But I’ll not be hanging up the splitter and wedges yet.

NB: I tried to post this earlier but no go. It’s now dark and Luciano and Enver are working on in the hope we can fire up the boiler tonight. The radiators are full and various hammering and grinding adjustments are being made. The first bag of pellets is poised. I’m standing by the shower. Also poised.