by Cecil Poole

My stove and I are back together again, close, with a warm, caring and trusting relationship.

We’d had a tiff, not that I noticed at the time.  Looking back it has been a rough couple of months, for both of us.   Poor communication.  Renovations.  My stove and I had grown old together, comfortable, understood each other, recognised our strengths and our foibles, or so I thought.  I think we both made assumptions, she thinking life would go on as usual, me looking for change, yet not consulting her.

Firstly I disconnected the water, so the jacket that had kept my stove in wonderful equilibrium now held none of that moderating liquid.  Then without so much as a by-your-leave I moved her, put her on rollers and scooted her across the floor into what had been the laundry.  (I never called her fat, although 200kg is quite a weight to carry.)  There I sat her up on a new base, not the brick hearth she was used to, but a modern compressed cement sheet atop a steel subframe.  If I gave her any thought it was only that I thought she’d be pleased with her new aspect.

Perhaps it was the new induction cooktop I’d cleverly installed right next to her that caused the upset.

(And (sotto voce), between you and me it is all it promised, controllable, with an even temperament.  I’d even taken to cooking my porridge on it.   And while using that new contraption I caused further humiliation by using her as a bench, a repository for dirty dishes, and hot pans.)

Perhaps I’d become blasé, and taken her too much for granted.  Maybe I was preoccupied with matters that should have been no concern of hers.

However, there are dangers in a woman scorned. . .

Knowing how I like my bread, slightly soft in the centre with a rich golden crust, my stove took revenge.  Got herself worked up, I believe, hot under the collar.  So hot in fact that the crust was blackened, and the centre dry.  The taste was substandard, not quite bad enough to throw out, but certainly not good enough to give away or share with visitors.  Pointedly, it had a slightly bitter taste.

I apologised for taking her for granted, tended to her needs with respect and an absence of condescension.   I gave her a good clean out, and a nice blacking.   Time to start over.

I gathered together the equipage, pages from the Herald Sun, (she always likes that, knowing that I wont be tempted to stop midway to read something), some well seasoned cedar kindling, and a few secondary pieces of spotted gum decking offcuts, and some wonderful blocks of split yellow box.

With trembling hand I lit her fire.  Gently, very gently I opened the draught and the damper, just enough to get a small blaze, slow enough to ensure a gradual rising of temperature once the box wood is added.

She really hates it when I rush, when I’m impatient, ‘premature‘ she calls it.  All in good time she seems to say, and, in good time, she began to smell the way she used to in days gone by when she was ready.   So I gave her the dough, two batches at once, and left them in for a full hour, then a quick twenty minutes with a flat bread, and after that a third coming with a roast of beef, surrounded by potatoes, onion, carrot and garlic.  When she’d finished she was exhausted, she knew she’d pleased me, and, for once she didn’t even smoke.

I’m hoping we can do it again sometime soon.