Friday 8th February

Well…..today has been interesting…..it started (eventually) around the breakfast table with comparisons between our kitchen and some parts of northern Alaska…less oil wells (in fact no oil at all) and less Inuit (that’s Eskimos to us) ….but just as cold. This wasn’t of course strictly true, but even the dog was pleased to go out for her early morning constitutional…..if only so she could warm up a bit! The Boss (obviously feeling guilty because ordering oil is a bit of a “man’s job”) was up, dressed and on the phone to the fuel company just after 06:30 ..…remember we’re only allowed to use 24 hour clocks now because the lifeboatman is taking his radio exam tomorrow…..and Dad must have said all the right things because the tanker was here by 11:00. That just left the firing up of the boiler…..well, to cut a very long story short…..and following suggestions from 3 supposedly “well experienced in these matters” male members of the family who all knew “exactly what they were doing”….by mid-afternoon we ended up having to call the boilerman/engineer/person to get things working. I think it’s fair to say that if we run out of oil again we’ll all know what to do….although Dad suspects that if it happens again he may well have to deal with the divorce lawyer a long time before the boilerman….I forgot to mention that the oil company called back on the (we’ve got the volume on FULL) house phone at 06:43 to check the address for the delivery….happy days all round for those family Eskimos that were still asleep….but at least no one got up to shout at the old man….it was too darn cold!!!

Firemen Sam had another “result” this morning……passing his Heavy Goods Theory Test with 34 out of 35. This means that, although he can’t drive a fire engine yet, he would know what to do if he was driving one…..yeah, we know…anyone could pass a theory test…..indeed, even the dog could do it if she had enough goes at the multiple choice…. Anyway, as is normal with these things at the Station, any exam success means “cakes need to be supplied”, so Ladder Boy has spent the afternoon cooking chocolate buns for tonight’s Red Watch. He had to leave early because he needed a shower and the boiler hadn’t heated up the water enough before he left…..just as well they have all the facilities at the Station. Did you see his photo in last night’s JEP? The lone fireman observing all the mess that he’s made by squirting copious amounts of water all over someone’s lounge……having said that, it’s better than having a dirty great fire rearrange your roof trusses in your hallway I suppose!

Two stressy students “in da house” tonight.…IT Girl has an assignment to be handed in by 23:59 and our local coffee expert has his radio course tomorrow….don’t suppose it’ll stop the TV going on, but both The Engineer and The Farmer commented on how it was a bit like being back at Uni, with laptops going frantically up to the eleventh hour…..unlike at Uni, we have a house that is slowly warming up, and a fridge full of food (at least until tomorrow morning, at which time we will discover yet again that the midnight munchies mob have devoured everything)….leaving only “salad products”, anything green, or anything which has the word “organic” on the label.

The “heated discussion” (more heated than our house, anyway) before supper tonight was whether “hoovering out” a lap top (which had suddenly appeared in a number of pieces all over the kitchen table) was more important than laying the table itself. The dog (who hates the hoover for some unknown reason….must be that smiley face…in any case, who names a hoover Henry? ) was also unimpressed….preferring to stay in her room tearing apart another of her “indestructible toys”. There must be some very wealthy people out there who saw our dog coming…..anything that lasts longer than half an hour is usually made of either granite or carbon fibre…anything else is on bits all over the floor.

Tonight’s subject was dominated by Findus…or, “find us” in the horse field sorting out the fat ones for the lasagne!! Much argument about whether we have ever eaten Findus products, what’s actually in them and are they good for your health…..not to mention the horses health….and what were we eating while we’re discussing if your food is safe?....chinese of course!!

Finally…computers…or tablets to be precise. The woman on the news that gave her 7 year old her iPad to play with for an hour to keep him quiet…..and woke up the next morning to a bill of over £1000 for games!...that’ll teach her not to sit down quietly with a good book and read to him once in a while. The other frightening thing we discussed was that these 5 and 6 year olds don’t know how to use a mouse now….it’s all touch screens…and the really frightening thing is that the “olds” in our house have only just got used to the idea that a mouse isn’t something that’s scratching around behind the skirting boards at Cottage Farm!!