My favourite chore – just as well, because it’s at least a daily one eight months of the year – is the fire.
From the time I got back to England in early January, until just a few days ago, the stove has been going almost continuously. Once a fortnight, or so, Dusty rings his bell, ties his boat up to mine and tosses 25 kg bags of coal onto my roof, before filling my tank with diesel and, if I need it, replacing my propane. If I am not home he slips a bill through my stern doors before he moves on to the next boat.
In between his visits I drag the coal bags one by one from the roof and onto my covered front deck, and twice a day I fill my coal scuttle using a small black shovel. I’m a little bit glad when the bag is empty enough that instead of shovelling I can lift it and pour the last nuggets, but then I’m a little bit sad too, because I know in just one more scuttlefull I’ll have to heave another 25 kg bag from the roof.
On a really bad day I realise at about 9 o’clock at night that the scuttle needs refilling and the bag is empty. I don’t like doing the roof manoeuvre ever, but especially not in the cold and dark. So then I suffer from duelling aphorisms: never put off until tomorrow what you can do today, competing with: sufficient unto the day is the trouble thereof.
At bedtime I bank up the coal and close down the dampers, and with luck, in the morning I only need to open all the draughts and the fire will wake up with me. There’s a “Mr Tippy” steel box by the stove for emptying hot ashes and I proudly keep count – nine days, ten days, a fortnight and the fire has never gone out. Coal is heavy and dirty, but it burns for a long time and a fire set just right can be left alone for many hours.
But the wind conspires with the stove to make my fire temperamental and capricious. On still nights if I turn the draught too low the fire will die, and when it is windy, if I give the stove too much air, the coal will be burnt to ashes before dawn.
On those mornings I kneel cold and tea-less in front of the stove, trying to coax it into life: fire first, kettle next.
But all is changed, now that spring has finally arrived: the trees are in blossom, the hedge has leaves and the flowers in the towpath gardens no longer look windswept and tentative. Yesterday the temperature reached the heady heights 21 C (that’s around 70 in “old money” – the Brit expression for all measurements imperial).
Dusty was the only unhappy boater on the canal as the days began to warm. He grumbled that he hoped it would be a short summer. I still had 3 bags on the roof and didn’t order more, though his text message announcing his visit read: “You think spring has sprung, but I had ice on my boat yesterday. Plant your coal bulbs now!”
Dusty is right, of course. We still need our fires, and I still light mine most evenings; as soon as the sun goes down, it’s cold. But I don’t need to keep the fire going through the night, and if I throw in a shovelful of coal in the morning I am sitting in a tee shirt with the doors open by 10 am.
These days, wood, and not coal, is my friend. Small logs burn fast, and can be scrounged here and there. I’ve watched my neighbours drag fallen branches from along the river below the lock and cut them up on makeshift sawhorses. Until September we just need a quick, fire fix. Poor Dusty.