Hot Water, Where ?

Living In The Past

   To say the last week was a crap one here at the barn is an understatement. First the chainsaw dies on me just as I make a start cutting back the large conifer trees that line one side of the new kitchen garden site. Then my trusty old laptop finally takes a well earned retirement after several months of playing up, I guess I shouldn't moan after 4 years of service and that's from a laptop obtained in a sale for next to nothing. Then finally we wake to find water seeping through the downstairs loo ceiling from the hot water tank above, leaving us with no hot water until the new tank is fitted at the end of this month.
   So with showers out the question it's like living in the past with kettles of hot water being taken to the bathroom for strip washes twice a day and even for washing the dishes.
   The situation took my mind back to the 60's when I was a kid taking my Sunday bath in the kitchen in front of the range. It was a tin bath shaped like a coffin in to which my mum would empty large cast iron kettles of boiling water and the soap had a hard feel with that old clean smell, a bit like tar.
   Living in a small rural village at that time meant a lot of cottages had no hot water or bathrooms and most still had a loo that was outside in the garden, we lived in such a cottage. The fact it was a beautiful large thatched house with lots of land and a small river running through the garden didn't make those cold winter evenings sitting in a tin bath or walking by torch light up the garden to the loo any easier, but it was normal life to us and we never knew any different.
   It wasn't until I was 10 years old when my parents, after 11 years on a waiting list, were given one of the few council houses in the village that we had even a hot water tap let alone a bath and to think my grandad like so many others lived all his life having never once been able to turn on a tap and wash his hands in hot water. So for us to spend a few weeks without is not such a bad thing, tho the idea of a tin bath in front of the fire is not one I welcome !
   On the bead side of things, I was trying to get some ceramic beads fired this weekend but it looks like I won't be able to, with lampwork taking up such a lot of time at the moment, there never seems enough hours in the day and I need to get both the etsy and ebay shops well stocked. So I hope ceramics will be ready at the end of the coming week giving me chance to spend a few evenings working on them.
   Ok cuppa ready and 80minutes sitting back watching the rugby for me then out to the flame to spend another day playing with glass.