Our house has been getting colder and colder, we use the radiators sparingly because gas is incredibly expensive in Bell Italia. Poor Fräulein who comes from the Baltic sea and should be more acclimatised to the baltic (cold) weather is feeling pretty cold. So in my infinite wisdom, I went out and bought a second hand pellet stove from a friend.

Davide sold me the pellet stove and part of the deal was he would help me to carry it upstairs and set it going for us. I had no idea how heavy this thing was, poor Gianni, Davide and I struggled with it up stairs. At one point I nearly suggested it would look better downstairs.

They went home and promised to return the following evening to start it up. Feeling quite satisfied with my daft self, carefully I connected the rear of the pellet stove to the special round hole in the chimney breast. The following evening as promised Davide returned and turned it on and the Stove promptly blew dirty soot all over the place. Some fool had put the tube on the inlet instead of the outlet. Looking rather sheepishly at Davide, who was standing closer to the stove than I was and therefore ended up dirtier than I did. I watched as he rolled his eyes and swapped the tube around.

With the exhaust now correctly connected, Davide pressed the start button and we waited with bated breath as the machine first went through a cleaning cycle and then… blew a fuse and switched off. Fräulein was sent on a fools errand to buy some more fuses. Did I point out it was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the shops that sold little glass fuses were closed, meanwhile Davide and I cleaned the soot and waited for the return of Fräulein .

There weren’t any fuses to be had, so Davide went home, but not before saying “Let’s hope your chimney hasn’t been closed” That gave me pause to think and a sleepless night full of weird dreams. 8:30 in the morning, I launched my drone and flew it over my roof. The roof had been renewed by the previous owner and there wasn’t a chimney in sight. They had been capped and tiled over. So now I understand why the wood stove we attempted to light smoked us out…

Monday evening Davide, Gianni and I will carry the Pellet Stove back downstairs and connected it to a hole in the lounge near the stairs in the hope some of the heat will flow upstairs.

So watch this space to see if we manage and that it doesn’t blow another fuse.