41 days ago
It costs a fortune to run the Aga but as the mercury dipped to just three degrees, two residents pulled down tea towels and settled in for the night as you can see below. It is what the Aga is for.
78 days ago
rite another batch of dried fruit is soaking in black tea to make the next two cakes. But after a 24hor soak, yesterday’s batch was added to flour, brown sugar, a bit of mixed spice and an egg, mixed thoroughly and baked in the Aga. Hey presto, the fist two cakes for tea at Sharestock on Saturday are now ready and being stored, as they should be, to mature a little.
317 days ago
The Met Office keeps on telling us all how jolly warm it is as a result of global warming. I have covered how its numbers are bodged and unreliable before but I can say without lying that, here in North East Wales, I feel bloody cold. It is, after all winter, so no climate change there. While the Mrs and my son Joshua are enjoying the Indian sunshine for another few days, the cats myself and little Jaya are really feeling it as the temperature, with wind chill, falls to zero
1149 days ago
They may be small but they are now turning red and fiery hot. I am advised that if they are strung up to dry for two weeks they can then be stored in a kilner jar so we have use of them right throughout the winter. And thus the first chillies were strung on a line using needle and thread yesterday and now hang in the kitchen in the old fireplace between the old bread oven and where the aga now sits, the place that the Mrs stores her booze. I will thread another line today and if I have time go pick another batch for threading. God willing we should have several hundred chillies drying within the next two weeks.
1429 days ago
The kitchen should have been ready by November 8. It is not yet finished. But, as of a couple of days ago, it became usable and last night we cooked a meal on and in the Aga for the first time and then The work unit with the Belfast sink should be completed January 20 by when a few other remedial works should be done. But we are now, as you can see below, settled in for Christmas. I start with the newly exposed arch which was once the front door looking into the room from the main house. On the wall opposite is the Mrs, the Aga and the old bread oven from the 1600s.
1433 days ago
The big project at the Welsh Hovel this Autumn has been the restoration of an old kitchen from the 1600s. By Tuesday I hope to be able to show you something that is 90% complete but here is one piece of history now coming to life. The view is from the hall in the centre of the house into the kitchen; you can see the new Aga at the far end and the beams which we have exposed and got back towards their original condition.
1444 days ago
Back at the height of the first lockdown to beat Covid and save the NHS, I was rationed as to how much flour and yeast I could buy at any one time as, in droves, folks started home baking. As I noted at the time, if one reads Defoe’s account of the Great Plague, people assumed in 1665 as they assumed in 2020 that changes in the way we behaved would be permanent. They will not be.
1486 days ago
Slowly things are taking shape in what will be a kitchen dining room. First up, the Aga has arrived and I have treated myself to a four oven model as you can see below. The tiles are still discoloured from the work done removing years of dirt from the walls and black paint from the beams but are slowly being cleaned, one treatment at a time.
3548 days ago
First things first. If you like Bearcast you'll love UK Investor Show so book your tickets for April 18 in Westminster now as they are 80% booked out as of today. You can book HERE. On today's podcast: Quindell and the loon conspiracy theories reach new heights, Worthington, Coms, Hunter Resources, DDD, Aga, APR Energy, Daniel Stewart and ValiRX.
