Who let the cat in?

The other night, Saturday night, to be exact, it was very cold in the house and we hadn’t made a fire in a few days and I can’t exactly remember why. But, needless to say, it was quite cold in the house (I think I’m repeating myself) and I had a brilliant idea that I would start a fire before we went out (to the pub for supper and then the concert [see previous entry] afterwards) so that the house would be nice and toasty warm when we got home.

I opened the wood stove and was met by a freezing draft of air falling down the flue. I built up the pile (newspaper, kindling, etc.) and also stuffed in a few extra handfuls of crumpled up newspaper to warm the chimney, and set it aflame and closed the door.

Alas, the air was so cold that the flue did not get warmed and smoke started pouring out the bottom vents of the stove into the living room. I quickly hooked up the vacuum cleaner and proceeded to suck up the smoke (and accompanying particulate matter), and called for Hubby to come and help me.

We finally got the chimney warmed and the fire roared and the flames leapt upwards, as they were supposed to, and the house was full of the pungent smell of wood smoke. I opened the front door, but we needed a cross breeze, so I opened the kitchen door (which is the door that opens onto the back deck) to find Suzie waiting for exactly that opportunity to come in.

I grabbed her and handed her to Hubby, who cuddled her for a bit, and then let her out the front door. I’m sure she wandered off thinking to herself, “What the fuck just happened there?”

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