Oven Prep.

And you thought one only has to turn it on?

Winter is approaching and with it the need to warm one's house. Blankets, woolen socks and jerseys although lovely and comfortable when paired with a book, won't do to keep the chill away. Heavy duty ovens are needed.

For our pellet oven the prep work starts already in June, at the height of summer and a great time to do the yearly service. The next hurdle are the pellets without which our oven is just an ugly piece of steel artwork in our living room. Pellets come in packets weighing 15 kg each and therein lies the challenge.

Getting them from the shop to our house. The last few years as our funds have increased we have opted to buy whole pallets of pellets. Before we'd buy five bags for each week as and when we had the money for it. The need for food trumps the need for warmth every time.

Tomorrow we had planned on driving early on to Deutsch Schützen to purchase said pallet from the Lagerhaus. A laborious affair indeed as it entails fetching and carrying 66 packets of 15 kg pellets twice; once into the trailer and once out of it into the storeroom.

Bob is clearly the stronger one of us but as he has been working so hard lately, I thought I would surprise him and do the pellet run this morning. My major hurdle was getting the trailer onto the tow hook but I am thrilled to say that today I managed it three times. Two trips to the Lagerhaus and since I am not good at reversing with it, I had to unhook it in our driveway in order to turn the chariot around. Yes, you guessed it; most women haven't got any affinity with parallel parking or reversing with a trailer.

At first the thought of having to lift 66 bags out of a trailer and log them ten meters to our store room was daunting to say the least, but I so wanted to give Bob a surprise and a break. Funnily enough, it was easily done and really, the hardest bit proved to be the placing of my order at the Lagerhaus. You try saying;

" I'd like to buy a pallet of pellets. "

and not say it the wrong way around. Oh well, at least I got a nice smile from the otherwise taciturn staff there...

Biggi