TUSCAN CHARCOAL BURNER

I had trouble getting a complete shot of this until I thought to stand on an old chair and shoot down. I left it off centre to give it some scale. There is a door just to the right.

These charcoal burning stoves were the first improvement over cooking in a pot dangling over an open fire in the fireplace or roasting in an outdoor oven. Quite a few people retain them when modernising their kitchens. They were always under windows for ventilation and can be covered easily with an attractive piece of wood or slab of marble. There they can stay, an original feature. They're very cute and then, who knows when there might be a massive power failure?

Our house would have had one but two walls of the kitchen were caved in. I would have kept it.

This old house, into which I keep breaking and entering, is still in decent condition. It is condemned for human habitation because there are no sanitary facilities and it is very damp. The ceilings in the main room, the former cattle barn, are too low for modern standards.

The more I go into this old kitchen, the sorrier I feel for the woman who worked there in the 1960s. She made attempts to jazz it up with tiles over the sink, some bulbous paper over the breast of the fireplace and cheesy little electric candle lights which are now dangling on their wires.

Several people asked about the trophy sitting at the corner of yesterday's kitchen sink. I took a snap of it today. It says: 2nd trophy of friendship, Noturno a Carignano, offered to G. Bertini, 1969. Trophy.

For the record: RIP Andy McGrath. A beautiful sunny day, +12 C. The hunters are out again, the dogs are barking again. We were all very nearly hysterical from the noise by the time they left yesterday. Even then there were lost hunters' dogs running about, the bells on their collars tinkling, more than enough to keep Cloud and Luigi off their rockers well into the night. The diggers are ready to start work tomorrow. May not be able to get out again.
Il Gato, the cat, tree surgeon came today to inspect leaning pines elsewhere.