Not mains gas of course as that would be far too a) easy and b) cheap. At some point in the unspecified future, a man either qualified to mess about with lethal gases, or the proud owner of the Queen’s favourite mutt shall connect Flange ‘B’ to Gusset ‘F’, and the bloody enormous cooker shall be ready for use.

For Carol this means the ability to feed the family using all manner of interesting flames – some confined to the oven, others threatening eyebrow removal up top. For me, it’ll provide the perfect partner for Sunday fryups built around a signature dish of eggy soldiers. I’m not much for cooking but the ‘external thermally coupled griddle with afterburner thrust” is essentially an indoor BBQ, and no real man can resist that.

Until then we were resigned to all weather BBQ’ing augmented by any fine delicacies than can be fried by microwave. But saved we were* by our insanely kind sellers who still live next door, and happened to have a cooker going spare.

This helped the ease the moving trauma which began at an unholy 7:30 this morning, and included such highlights as yours truly being felled by a hail of coat hangers, the terrifying loss of all our booze, and the broken inevitably of two large men being overrun by a large wardrobe.

Still they’ll probably be fine. Spinally compressed and a bit shorter, but basically fine. They build them different out here and I’ll leave you with an example of exactly how different that can be.

Various builders, electricians and random interlopers have been glassy eyed confused on my retelling of how we saw a bridally bedecked tractor heading off to Church this morning. Everyone thought this was strange, me because it’s a TRACTOR for God’s sake, and everyone else not understanding why I should find this amusing.

And when they had all gone, I walked up the hill and spent ten minutes in the viewing company of absolutely bugger all. It may not be for everyone, but here and now it feels bloody fantastic.

* No ariel. No TV. Been practicing my Yoda method acting through repeated viewings.