All yesterday there was the most awful smell in the house. Try as we might we could not find the source or stop it. Even after we had gone to bed it lingered and when I got up in the night it was still bad. This morning despite the newly baked bread, it was still there. Anne went to begin to clean out the wood stove and lay the fire. The chimney breast was still hot, as was the metal pipe from the fire to the chimney. I went and opened the soot door to find a nice glowing mound of soot. We had a chimney fire. Not enough to need the fire brigade or really set the chimney ablaze, but not nice. And the smell was awful. So very carefully we shovelled the hot soot out of the chimney breast. That seemed to do the trick in that slowly the chimney breast and the upstairs chimney breast began to cool down. I went and found my flexible rods, but we do not have a chimney brush. So, as we needed to go into town any way as the Microwave oven has gone belly up, we braved the 9 inches of snow on the road and went in. Hah! There was not a single parking space to be had in the town. We did manage to get a brush from the Farm suppliers. Home, slipping a bit on our ungritted lane. The chimney was now cold so I set to and swept the chimney. 3 more buckets of cold soot and a lot of dust later, the job was done. It took Anne the rest of the afternoon to clean up and we will have to dust again tomorrow. The fire is not lit and the smell has gone. Now all we need is a new microwave.
