Another Mountain

I don't know the name of this one. It stands between Mount Hutt and Porters skifields. Any clues, Canterbury blippers?

It is much higher and further away than it appears here. The gull was close to me, many miles from the mountain.

Another clear sunny day, which is a blessing. I'm facing a cold couple of nights.

Last evening a big lump of mortar dropped out of the corner of the firebox in my Rayburn range. It's a very old stove and various alterations had been done inside it before I came here. The lining bricks are cracked and crumbled. When I looked into having them replaced I was shocked to learn that it would cost many hundreds of dollars. They had to be specially imported and a tradesman would have to travel from some distant place.

I made do until one day a big brick dropped onto the grate in a number of pieces. My son loves puzzles. He got some fireproof cement and reconstructed it. We managed to install it and fill in all the gaps. Since then for the last 13 or 14 years I have been keeping it in good repair, but occasionally there's a failure, as there was last night.

I went to work on it this morning and I think I did a good job. But the new cement needs to be left for 48 hours before the fire is lit again. With such an efficient appliance in the house I don't have a really effective electric heater. Just as well I have a good collection of hot water bottles.

Better in large.