Life as an army child in Aden

Elephant bay

I was talking to a couple of young people recently, and commented that I'd seen service with my soldier father, in Aden. Both looked blank and asked where Aden is. I was surprised. Has the world shrunk that much that people only now about their local area?
Anyway, I have decided to write as I feel and today I will write about Aden.
We were stationed in Germany at the time and I can remember Dad coming home and telling mum that we'd been posted again. She asked where, and Dad had replied "Aden". I was 10 years old and had no idea where Aden was but I know mum didn't want to go as she cried.
At school the next day, I told teacher and she took me to the big map which was on the wall at the back of the classroom. She pointed to a tiny place, right down the bottom of the map 'Aden' it said.So far far away from Germany. Teacher looked very grave, but said that she hoped I would be happy in our next posting.
At the time I thought nothing of it, but  on reflection, it must have been hard for teachers working for B.F.E.S.(British Forces Education Service) with pupils coming and going, some staying only a few months, favourite pupils leaving as fathers got posted elsewhere. As an army daughter, I was used to making friends, then losing friends, making new ones as we all moved about.
So, M.F.O. (married families overseas) boxes were all packed with our belongings and we left the home I'd known for 6 years. We were sent to Blackpool to stay in a hostel for 2 months, and dad was sent to Aden to prepare for our arrival. I remember going to school in Blackpool for the 2 months and in the playground one day, the pupils were asked to march into class. I was told I was rubbish and, being an army daughter, should know how to march properly.Now, I see that it was a stupid comment. After all, would a plumber's daughter know how to fix a leak, or a doctor's daughter know how to diagnose an illness? My Dad was the soldier, not me. I also remember the vile school dinners there.It was my first taste of 'civvie street' and I didn't like it much.
Then, we went to join dad. I can't remember the flight to Aden, but I remember when we landed at Khormaksar airport and the door opened and it was as though a hot wet blanket hit us as we left the plane. It was night time, and dad drove us to our flat on the top floor of a block on the Khormaksar beach road. He'd turned the air conditioning on. However, there was a ghecko on the wall and us kids were scared (3 of us shared one bedroom). Dad caught it and put it out and we slept. Next morning was the start of the adventure. Dad gave us sweat towels, told mum to make sure we drank lots,and told her to give us salt tablets to replace vital salts in our bodies from sweating in the first months until we adjusted. Then off he went to his work in Normandy lines and left us to settle in and unpack. Mum was stressed and spent the next few days screaming at my brother and I (my sister was the golden child) and we were kicked out of the flat to explore. In the flats, there was an armed guard at the entrance on the ground floor. We met other army kids who showed us around.
We weren't in a compound of any kind and we had local people living behind us. The kind soldier told us not to wander off and that was it. I was overjoyed to discover stray dogs roaming. (Nobody warned me about rabies) and soon made friends with them. There was 'Titch' a little female who was constantly in pup, a large Akita type dog with a broken tail which hung down, who I named 'Bruno' and several more, who discovered in me, a child who gave them affection and was happy to sit pulling off the clumps of ticks around their faces, petting them, and fetching bowls of water for them.
Our flats were right on the beach road with a petrol station immediately next to the flats. At night, Arab lorry drivers would pull in to sleep, play music, chew qat and eat. When the music went on too late into the night, I remember dad chucking a lightbulb down near then. From 4 floors up, when it landed and exploded, it must have sounded like a gunshot and all the lights got turned off and there was silence.
 We caught the school bus, across the road, in front of the 'Sea view' hotel (that would be significant later on).
As we waited with the other kids, we would go to one of the little Arab owned shops situated in the lock ups underneath the flats, to buy a 'stim' (fizzy drink, always made by Canada dry), or an ice cream.
The bus arrived. It was a big khaki army bus with strong mesh anti missile mesh across the windows, with an armed soldier inside the bus, and an armoured vehicle with a machine gun mounted on it, with more armed soldiers front and back , to escort us to school , which was inside one of the barrack ares (or 'lines' as they were called over there).

in Ma'ala. Note armed soldiers in the street and one of the armed landrovers

inside the school bus. 

school buses in Ma'ala with armed land rover front and behind

aftermath of a grenade attack

note anti mortar grille over the windows of the school bus

escorting school kids to their waiting parents. Since none of the children are in uniform, I have a feeling this may be from the bus during the holidays which was bringing us home from the mermaid club

We did the usual thing when starting a new school. The teacher would announce that there was a new pupil and introduce us. Some memories from my school days are having water fountains everywhere.Grenade training in assembly and at odd times during play time. We were taught that when someone shouted "grenade" we had to immediately drop to the ground, lay on our stomachs with our hands clasped over the back of our heads. A craze for playing 'jacks', everyone having a locally made straw bag to carry our school things in, and one day, fainting in assembly and being asked if I'd had any breakfast, then getting into trouble when I went home because my Mother had been told off for not feeding us before we left the house. I don't think my mother liked my brother and I very much and had no sense of responsibility to us.My little sister was a different kettle of fish. She was the golden child. She was just about to start primary school. My mother would boast about how an Arab door to door seller offered 10 camels and a gold watch in exchange for her.
Most of my memories of Aden were spending the day roaming the area alone. Looking back, I can see how dangerous that was.Aden was a troubled area, a civil war was brewing, we heard shots and grenades going off. But still I roamed free. I made friends with a little Arab girl who lived near us. Her name was Nadia. She lived with her parents and brothers and grandparents in a beautiful large house, surrounded by flowers and greenery, which was most unusual in this barren desert area. One day, one of Nadia's brothers kissed me, and to her horror and his embarrassment, I walloped him.
I enjoyed crossing the Khormaksar beach road, to the beach across the road from our flats, to play, paddle in the shallows and fish. Dad was a keen angler and would fish with me. We caught amassive ray type fish one day and dad took it home and he and I enjoyed a meal. Mum didn't like fish so she refused to eat any of it. Another time, Dad caught an even bigger one, and a very skinny litle Arab boy was watching us. Dad felt sorry for him as he looked very hungry, so he quickly killed the fish and offered it to the little lad, who seemed very pleased, and staggered off down the beach dragging this fish which was bigger than he was!
I remember one day, getting off the school bus and climbing the stairs to our flat, when I spotted a little dog, cowering by the front door of the flat 2 floors below us. Normally, my instinct was to pet it. Even back then, I loved animals, however, this day, 'something' told me to hurry past, and so I did. Later that day, I watched as my dad, took the dog across the road to the beach and shot it, and buried it. I wept buckets, and thought my father very cruel, until he explained what rabies was and that this poor little dog was going to die a horrible slow death from it.
One day, dad came home very stressed and told mum to start packing as we were on the move again. From our balcony we could see the beach being blocked with rolls of barbed wire, more armed landrovers about than usual and people generally seemed on edge. Apparently, the U.N was coming to stay in the Sea View hotel (I mentioned it earlier) to try to negotiate peace between the N.L.F. and FLOSY, the 2 warring factions. All the families were being moved away because of the fear of increased attacks in the area. We moved to Ma'alla, to a flat on what was called 'Murder mile'. Frankly, my life in Khormaksar was nothing compared to this. I was no longer allowed to play outside. These locals were not friendly at all. Nightly we heard grenades going off. Our flats at the back, facing the Shamsan mountain range and the shanty town (kutchi huts) had anti mortar wire over the windows because terrorists would fire  mortars at us from the kutchi huts. There was an armed guard at the entrance to the flats and on the roof, was a shelter with more armed soldiers.
Occasionally my mother went shopping in the little local shops along the mile. The shopkeepers were always friendly. they made a nice living out of the army wives after all, but sitting about on the pavement, older men would glare at us, and, as we walked past, throw pins, like darts, at our legs.
Of course in that heat, wounds quickly became infected too and I still have scars on my legs from where abscesses formed from the pin pricks.
During the school holidays, an army bus was provided for the children, to take us to the Lido, or 'The mermaid club' as it was called. The ranks had their own places you see. The mermaid club was for the lower ranks. My brother and I went regularly. We were given a few dinar to buy a stim and some chips. We swam like fish in the sea, but always within the shark netting. Only an idiot would swim or paddle outside. One new woman to the place decided to paddle by some rocks outside the netting and was taken by a shark. We also had spotters to make sure no sharks managed to get inside the netting and an alarm would sound if one was spotted. One day at the mermaid club the alarm was sounded . Apparently there was a large 'grey nurse' shark inside the netting.
I can remember my little brother once cutting his foot badly on broken glass and I had to carry him on my back, to the medical centre. It must have only been a few hundred feet away but I was skinny and tiny and it seemed like miles. He got stitches in his foot.
On the weekends, Dad would take us to various other ranks beaches. We went to Elephant bay once, but Little Aden beach seemed a favourite. Across the bay were the forbidding peaks of 'Silent valley' the grave yard for soldiers and families killed in Aden.
We spent Xmas day on the beach one year and I went with the other kids, pestering the squaddies for their empty 'stim' bottles because we got money on each returned bottle, to buy a choc ice with.The sand was so hot on the beach that you could not go barefoot at all. Occasionally, an Arab man would walk past with his camel (camels stank).
We would occasionally go to the swimming pool in Waterloo lines. My hair had,by that time, been bleached blonde, as were most of the fair haired kids. I was happy that we went mostly to beaches. Those children whose parents didn't like the beaches and would only let the kids swim in the pool, ended up with green hair from the chlorine in the pool.

taken from google earth. When I lived here, there were no buildings on the beach opposite the flats. It was just a large sandy beach!


http://www.britishpathe.com/video/aden-last-troops-withdraw-aka-last-guard-of-honour/query/Aden

On the whole, I have nothing but very fond memories of my time in Aden. Eventually all the families had to be evacuated out of Aden. I remember boarding the plane to fly back to blighty, refuelling in Iran, where we were not allowed to get off the plane. I was taken under the wing of a nice air hostess who let me be an air hostess for the flight. I helped her serve drinks, give out boiled sweets, serve the meals, and at the end, watch her doing a stock take.
Then we landed in England. It was cold and grey and smelled of coal smoke. We stayed overnight at a forces hostel at R.A.F. Hendon, then got put on a train to Shropshire. When we arrived in Shrewsbury, Mum bought us kids a banana each. What a strange banana though. It was yellow!!! And it tasted odd. Bananas in Aden were green and delicious.
We were met by an army driver and driven to Wem which was to be our home for several months, until Aden was eventually evacuated and everyone came home.In Wem I discovered that I was regarded as a gypsy, bullied and generally made miserable. Only my second ever experience of civvie street and once again, I disliked it and could not understand the clannish xenophobia that civilians seemed to display towards anyone from outside the immediate area. We lived in army quarters in Aston park (now renamed Ash grove.) I was happy there, among other army children. Our playground was the old deserted army camp, complete with Nissen huts to make into dens. There old bedsteads and one even had an old upright piano in it. There were also dangerous steep sided deep water tanks in which we might have drowned.In the photo below which is a modern one from google earth, the house we lived in is the 2nd on the right as you turn into the close.Above is the old camp. You can see where the old Nissen huts used to be. I understand that the whole area is now an industrial park.

Civilians don't seem to understand us forces families. Army kids have a different upbringing. We've experienced things they cannot comprehend and put up with hardships. Civilians don't seem to understand that us kids also served.

 There is now even an 'armed forces covenant' which recognises the debt that the country owes to members of the armed forces and their families.
What a pity that Kensington mortgages is happy to put this old soldier's daughter out of her home rather than extend the mortgage which she was missold 19 years ago.

. The only good thing I can remember about Wem was learning to ride and to love horses.
Eventually, just before Xmas, my Dad arrived back from Aden and we travelled to our next posting back in Germany,

Homeless

so, it seems I am to be homeless next year. I shall be the wealthiest homeless person on the streets, with tens of thousands in my bank.
Why am I to be homeless?
Well, 19 years ago, I bought my little cottage on an interest only mortgage with an endowment. The endowment I was sold, will not be anywhere near enough to pay back the £19000 I owe on my mortgage.
I feel I was talked into this kind of mortgage at the time, by a mortgage broker who has since been struck off the FSA for his dodgy dealings.
He would recommend the mortgage company and the mortgage type, which paid him the highest fees, instead of making sure he got the right deal for his clients. He made as much money as he could before he got struck off.
So it now turns out, that after 19 years of never missing a payment, never being late and having a good credit rating, the company I am with, won't help.
I rang Kensington mortgages up last week to ask if they will extend the mortgage by 6 years (bringing me up to my retirement age) and change it to a repayment mortgage.I figured that since I'd been a reliable client all this time, they would be happy to do so. After all, it's 6 years more interest for them. I was told that this isn't something they will do. So I asked what will happen in 14 months time when I can't pay the capital sum off and was told "we will repossess your home".

So there you have it. in 14 months time, this disable old woman, with her pets,who spent her entire life, first as a soldier's daughter, travelling around the world, rootless with no family other than mum and dad, to war zones like Aden where we saw the remains of suicide bombers on the way to school, then as a soldier's wife. Will be reduced to sitting in the road with her belongings around her and nowhere to go.
I have no wider family to take me in. I don't know them, thanks to my army upbringing. I will have to wait until they sell my home, and hopefully they will give me the money they make. Of course if they go for a quick sale at auction, I will be lucky to get £30000. Still a lot of money, but not enough for me to buy somewhere to live.

I must admit that I feel betrayed, by the mortgage broker and by Kensington mortgages.
At the time I took out the mortgage, I was coming out of a violent and abusive marriage. I was emotionally damaged and really desperate to get away. I was guided by the mortgage broker who seemed nice and wanted to help me.
Now Kensington mortgages are also betraying 19 years of customer loyalty. I could have remortgaged years ago, but I felt I owed them my loyalty because they literally saved me by giving me a mortgage when I needed one fast, to escape my violent husband.
(If I saw him in my local village, even 5 years after the divorce, I'd start to tremble and my mouth would go dry and I would pray he didn't see me so that I could get away and hide until he'd gone past).
Surely it won't be a terrible thing for Kensington mortgage company to extend the mortgage by 6 years and get 6 years of profit. It's not a long time, and it's not a lot of money is it?

Because I stuck with them, I've left it too late to get another mortgage. I'd have got one 10 years ago, when I was young and able to earn an income, but now, aged 61, and with health issues, I have no chance. So,I am about to be homeless next year. Kensington mortgages.

I have started to rehome my beloved animals. However, I ran an animal sanctuary for many years and most of the animals are geriatric and have health problems. Nobody will want those, and some of the dogs would suffer emotionally if parted from me and placed in new homes. It's not kind to place a dog who is 16 years old, and has lived with me for 14 years, into a new home.So I shall find homes for those I can, the ones who would suffer if parted from me, will be put to sleep, as will the unadoptable ones. I have failed them and that causes me pain. I can't leave it to the last minute, that isn't fair.
I ran a free advice line for the last 25 years and one of the things that irritated me was selfish pet owners keeping their pets up to the last minute, then phoning me the week before they were moving, and wanting me to take it. If I have 14 months to find homes for my beloved animals, hopefully by the time I am repossessed and homeless, I won't have any pets, and if I don't have any more pets, I won't have a reason to live. I don't want money. There's more to life than simply being alive, and for me, having to leave my little cottage, my alternative lifestyle and my animals, means that I may as well be dead. So I have decided that once I have no responsibilities, I shall wait in my little cottage, then slit my wrists. It's not such a terrible thing. I've had a wonderful life, travelled the world, learned languages, met some great humans and animals and now it is time to end it.
It's the rational thing to do, and rational is what I do best.

What is the point of losing the home I love, the animals which have kept me happy and alive, and my dignity, to end up in a homeless shelter. Frankly, I'll be better off on the streets as I prefer to be alone. At least on the streets I can keep one dog. I will happily live outside in a tent or in my van, I don't need mod cons, and the dog I'll end up keeping is my huge Spanish mastiff cross who is literally unadoptable. Despite him only being 2 years old, and a rescue from Spain, he has many health problems and his breeding means that he has a very high protective instinct. He is aggressive to any dog which doesn't live here and I would not trust him to transfer his loyalty to other people.Up to now, he had a horrible start in Spain being hurt, then thrown out of a vehicle by his people, to live or die on the streets.After I got him, it was discovered that he had a trauma damaged knee, and such severe hip dysplasia that he has no hip socket at all so his leg is permanently dislocated. He's been in pain every single day of his life, until the vet prescribed him Tramadol. His knee has now been fixed, with 8 titanium rods, at a cost of £2500.
See that's the other thing. While I was earning money, I saved. Several times over the years, I phoned Kensington mortgages to ask if I could reduce the capital sum by paying off a couple of thousand at a time and was told that they don't allow this.
I really can't understand why they are so inflexible.
After all the stress and Kensington. being so unhelpful over the decades, I can only recommend that anyone wanting a mortgage, to avoid them.

And on top of everything, after a lifetime spent feeling like a square peg in a round hole,I have been finally diagnosed with Autism/Aspergers and PDA. So, army daughter, disabled old woman with mental health issues, will be repossessed and put onto the street, rather than Kensington mortgages helping her, helping the animals, and helping themselves to 6 years more interest. What a terrible world we live in. I don't understand it and will, frankly, be happy to be out of it!
The photos below are literally a montage of my life as it is right now.Apart from the first one, showing me, 30 years ago, when I used to show standard poodles, (my own bred Bowerdales forever ebony, after she won Best of Breed). How my life has changed.

a friend's mother is an artist. She painted this for me.

sweet 'Feather'

My Spanish rescue dog recovering from his recent cruciate repair with 8 titanium rods.

'Marlon' the rescued abused chameleon finally enjoying life in his outside cage here he gets to enjoy the sunshine

'Pi', the ex breeding Devon rex cat, and little 'Nancy' and 'Minnie' the hairless dogs.Yes, I have a tattoo. I decided to get a sponsored tattoo in order to raise some money for Greenpeace. It reads "remember the Rainbow Warrior, 10th July 1985"
I managed to raise £100 for them..

'Moriarty' the rescued bearded dragon. Now 10 years old, outside on a summer day.

sisters Nancy and Minnie

'Pi'

'Sunday' a tiny kitten of around 5 weeks old, found stuffed down a rabbit hole, and brought to me 3 years ago. She was literally being eaten alive by fleas.

my beloved Spanish rescue, Spanish mastiff cross

Strangely enough, I feel like I've been told I only have 14 months to live. I can plan how it goes. I have always been independent. Being born and brought up in the army makes it so. So, in the next 12 months I shall rehome the animals, then I shall open the house and auction off all my belongings and put the cash in a safe place for my son, then slit my wrists. If Kensington mortgages want to take my home from me, they can, but I've always said that I will end my days here, and so I will.
Being on the autism spectrum means that I prefer to plan, and like everything just so, and under my control.

Refugees and migrants

My gardener/handyman came on Friday and as he and I were chatting, he commented : "Well if these people are refugees, how come, in the newspapers, we see them taking selfies with iphones"?

I hear this sort of thing a lot, mostly from people who don't like 'foreigners', or the thought of them coming to the UK.
 I explained that newspapers always have an agenda and pictures don't actually tell a thousand words, and if they did, most of the words would be lies. I asked him if he'd seen images of the camp in Calais on the news. He said he had. I asked him why he thought people were living like that in such terrible conditions if, by his implication, they were well off. He had no answer.

I asked him, if another country went to war with us and started bombing us and the country was a shambles, with no water, little food, the whole infrastructure gone to pieces, and all around him in his village, his friends, neighbours and family were bombed out and killed and every day it was getting more dangerous, so that in the end, one of his friends said to him "listen, we need to get out of here and I've heard there is a place we will be safe and can start again, perhaps start a business or get work", would he simply walk away with just the clothes on his back, or would he grab his phone so that he has some means of keeping in touch with those dear to him, and anything of value that he might sell or trade along the way, in order to sustain himself and maybe get a start in the country he was trying to reach?
It seemed he'd had a lightbulb moment.

Why do bigots in the UK, assume that outside the UK, in places like Syria (which the UK government is destroying) that there is no technology and the civilians live in mud huts with no electricity or running water and communicate by smoke signals?

I explained that the likes of the Daily Mail, brainwash people into thinking how they want them to think, So when he sees a photo of people taking selfies with iphones, the reporter has deliberately taken a photo of it and this will be the picture splashed across the page, leading people to have no empathy for refugees. Our government is helping to destroy their country, but doesn't want to accept any responsibility for those whose lives it has destroyed. It certainly doesn't want to take any responsibility for the desperate

Still not convinced?
Well think about the cities of England during the blitz of the second world war. People's homes got bombed and they were evacuated. Did they just walk away with nothing? Or did they comb the rubble of their destroyed home, hoping to find anything of value, sentimental or monetary?
survivors, or let them settle here. So it makes sure the general population feels hatred towards them by being selective about what they photograph.
Yet people are thinking badly of refugees who have done the same.

The media is nothing short of mass brainwashing of the population.

The one advantage of being autistic is that I analyse things. So I hear people sneer at the refugees and start to ponder about stuff.
I'm not a bleeding heart liberal by any means, however, I do happen to think that if the government of one country, destroys another country, they have a responsibility to the people whose homes and lives they have destroyed. And if they don't want that responsibility, stop dropping bombs on them!


How desperate do people have to be to set out on a rickety overloaded boat with tiny children and babies? They don't do it for fun. They don't do it because they are a bit fed up with where they are living and fancy a change. The newspaper photo of that little boy laying drowned on a beach, made me cry. It reminded me of when my own son was tiny. That's how he would sleep.

As to where we would put all the refugees if we allowed them in................... well, there are currently enough empty properties in this country (owned by wealthy land owners and landlords), that every homeless person in the land, would have a choice of 10 .

Then there are the clickbait facebook posts stating things like "click if you support 'our forces' and the like.  I ask myself why? What help will clicking do? Will it help someone with PTSD? Will it send a donation to S.S.A.F.F.A.? Or perhaps send a donation to any of the forces charities to help ex service people? No it won't and it doesn't. So why do people click and share?
Of course I 'support' our forces. I have done so from birth as I am a soldier's daughter and was with my Father as he was posted all over the world, even spending 2 years in war torn Aden, where I went to school in a bomb proof school bus with weldmesh over the windows to protect u from thrown grenades, and an armed guard inside the bus and an armed landrover with several soldiers in, one in front of the bus, and one behind.Where we were taught in school, what do do if someone yelled "grenade" (throw yourself flat on the ground and stay down), where we could not go outside of our married quarter flats (complete with armed soldiers on the roof and the entrance) for fear of us getting killed or kidnapped or shot at.So yes, I support them. I went on to marry a soldier and my son was born in a British Military hospital in Germany. I don't need to click on a picture. I've been there, done that and lived the life!
I found these photos online.

Us kids would craze the soldier for the little feathers on his beret.

Taken in Ma'Alla. Note the armed soldiers in the road. Traffic was stopped to let the kids off the white buses. Behind the bus on the right, you see the armed landrover with more armed guards in.My family lived in the block of flats just in front of the front bus on the left. The road was called Ma'Alla straight, nicknamed 'murder mile'.
So don't ask me to click if I support 'our boys', get out of your armchair and join up, join the T.A. or get your hand in your pocket and give to S.S.A.F.F.A. or something like that, instead of sitting and clicking and feeling so patriotic because you pressed a key on the computer!

Then you get the posts about 'our servicemen' being more important that refugees. Well compassion is not finite. I can care about both. We are all humans.
If you knocked your neighbour's house down , the law would insist that you made things right and paid enough money to him, for him to rebuild or repair his home or find a home somewhere else wouldn't it?
So why does our own government feel that it has no responsibility towards the people of the country that they have bombed and destroyed?

Money makes the world go around?

Money has many different names, 'filthy lucre', cash , wonga, dough ect. As much as many of us despise those who worship at the foot of the great prophet Profit, the fact remains that we all need money to live in the modern world.

I have made it an aim, to try to make mine go as far as possible. I am frugal.

For instance, I wouldn't dream  of buying new clothes, a new car, new furniture and the like.
I get great pleasure out of finding a bargain. For instance, my fridge freezer which was 99p on ebay.
Oh it's old, and it has a handle missing on the top door, but it works. It isn't  exactly the size I would like, but for 99p I'll make do until a bigger one comes along at a price I'm happy with.

My car is 13 years old, not pretty, but it was cheap, it functions, it's safe. When my last car died (I was getting bored with it, but would not have sold it until it was no longer economical to maintain) I sold it for scrap and got £150 for it. It was a Citroen Xsara. A nice little car with plenty of space in the back and I'd recommend them to all 'normal' people and people with kids, but, for someone with a dog as large as my Grippa, it was just not big enough.I had only paid £350 for her, and had run her for 3 years and adding the scrap money in, I had had trouble free motoring for £200.
So I decided to go back to my old faithful Peugeot 4 series diesel estate. I looked online and phoned dealers to find what I wanted. I refuse to pay more than around £600 for a car.
I looked on ebay and preloved and gumtree. Because I was without a vehicle, any car I went to see, had to be fairly local as I was relying on a friend to drive me to it.
So on an online car classified site, I spotted just the car I was looking for. A Peugeot 406 turbo diesel estate with 12 months M.O.T.
It had some good spec' too, like air con and the rear windows can be operated from the front (perfect for dog people to open or close the back windows while driving instead of reaching around behind you.)
It was more money that I really wanted to pay, but, after 2 weeks with no car, I was getting desperate.
It was from a dealer and he was asking £895. I phoned and asked about the car and it sounded just what I was looking for. I haggled over the phone and eventually he agreed on a price of £750.
I told him I would be over that afternoon to buy the car. I called my friend and she picked me up and drove the 18 miles to Peterborough.
We found the dealer, I looked at the car, stared it up, it ran good with no smoke or knocks. Oil level was good, no oil in the radiator (head gasket), some service history. So the girl who worked there was writing the reciept and getting the papers together. I spied the old M.O.T, and asked about the new one. After all, the advert' had said "12 months M.O.T."
There was no new one. So she called her boss, the owner and asked him about it. His reply was that it wasn't M.O.T'd but if my friend and I wanted to wait, the driver would take it to the testing station and get it done.
That rang alarm bells. Nobody can guarantee that a vehicle will pass, unless it isn't genuine. So my fiend and I drove 2 miles up the road to a small shopping centre and had coffee and a wander around, then an hour later, went back to the dealer to collect and pay for the car.
The girl came out of the office, very embarrassed and said the car still had no M.O.T.
After we had driven off, he boss had called to tell her to get a deposit off me and not to get the car tested without the deposit.
At this, I'm afraid I lost my temper. Not with the girl, but her boss.
So I told her to ring him and give me the phone.
This she did.
When the boss came on the line, I told him I was angry. I was angry at being messed about, angry that he  put a false advert'  in the paper, angry that my friend had driven me all the way there, then pratted about for an hour, but most of all, I was angry that he was not a man of his word, and, because he'd wanted a deposit, despite my having shown him that I was a woman of my  word, by saying that I'd buy the car and turning up to buy it, then despite being messed about, coming back after the hour, to buy it. So I had kept my word, but he had not kept his. I didn't shout and I didn't swear but I was raging angry, so I told him that he had 2 options. Either, I would go home with my friend, then take him to the small claims court for the cost of her diesel, and her time, plus my being messed about, he would then lose a sale.Or, I would buy the car, as is, with no MOT for £400 which was more than the scrap value.
He agree to sell me the car for £400.
When I eventually got it home, I took it straight to my local M.O.T. testing station Crowsons motors, who managed to fit the car in for testing the very next day and.........it passed with no work needed.
Bargains like that make me happy.

The reason I decided to write about money stuff today, was a post on facebook about people claiming PPI. A company was advertising that they would do it on your behalf.
Now, it's a really simple thing to do, but it seems many people got someone else to do it for them and paid them 30% of anything they got back. One person even commented that they were happy with the £2000 they got and didn't begrudge the company the £1000 they charged because it was money they never had to start with. Um, sorry love, you did  have the money, all you had to do was ask for it. But instead, you paid someone £1000 to make a phone call and fill out a form for and you seem happy to have handed over the £1000.The company which had posted the advert' even lied and said that he knew someone who asked the bank about PPI and the bank found he never had it but gave him £1000 just in case he had had it and they couldn't find it. And people on the page believed him. No bank will throw away money 'just in case'. Why are folks so gullible?

When did people get so lazy about their money? When did people become so spendthrift?
For a start, how come people don't know what is being taken out of their bank account and how were they being charged for something without them knowing it?

Check bank statements regularly (at least once a month) and question anything you don't recognise. If you take out a bank loan, read the small print and ask about anything you don't understand. Then ask to take the form away so that you can study it again and ask advice from someone impartial.
Would you leave your purse open for anyone to dip into? I suspect the answer is "no"! So don't let just anyone take money from your account.

 The other bit of advice is to haggle. Whenever you buy anything, haggle. Ask for a discount for cash. The worst that can happen is that they say "no". If you are buying anything  check it out online first. See who is offering deals and discounts, check prices, who is offering free delivery. Then look at reviews for the item. It's all there online, you just have to look for it. That way, you'll get the best deal .

Take my washing machine for example. My last one had eventually died. It was an industrial whirlpool one. I bought it secondhand off ebay for £160. It was heavy duty, and it needed to be as I am death to washing machines. For all that I live alone, I do a load of laundry every other day and, it'll be hairy dog blankets, gritty cotton rugs, my muddy clothes with bits of sawdust and shavings in.
Most modern machines just cannot cope with that, so I got the Whirlpool and paid for a maintenance contract which offered free parts and labour warranty, plus, when the machine became uneconomical to repair, they would buy a new equivalent machine for me.I think I paid £9 a month for this. I got my money's worth too.I had the machine for 3 years and in that time the belt broke, the pump broke (all that hair and grit and sawdust), the door lock got stuck and it needed a new drum. Then one day the mechanic came out again and said it really wasn't worth fixing. So the company emailed me with a selection of machines to choose from.

I emailed back saying that none of them was the equivalent. Either the load was too small (4kg load as opposed to the 10KG load my Whirlpool too) or the spin speeds were too slow. I had to argue as they said that those were the ones I was being offered. I dug my heels in and told them that it was like telling me to choose from a Ford escort, a Vauxhall astra and a mini, when I had been driving a Jaguar XJS. I had to get quite shirty with them and threaten court action as they were not abiding by the contract we had agreed on, to replace with an equivalent machine. Anything with a smaller drum and slower spin speed was not 'equivalent' after all. So, I did a couple of hours online, researching machines, reading reviews, and came across the Samsung eco bubble. It was perfect. So I emailed the warranty company and showed them the machine I wanted. They told me that it was not on their list of suppliers. I replied that this was not my problem. The machine was equivalent to the one that had died. It took a couple of weeks, but I refused to budge. In the end, they sent me a cheque for the cost of the machine I had decided upon, accompanied by a letter telling me never to darken their website again lol. Companies don't like people standing up to them.

So I banked the cheque and went online to find a supplier. In the time between my first deciding on the machine, and then actually having the money to buy it, I found a company selling one with a scratch on the side. It was brand new and in the box, but only £365, so I ordered it. Then I discovered that Samsung offer a free 5 year parts and labour warranty. I just had to go to the website and register it.
I've had the machine for 3 years now. Just like the last machine, the pump stopped working and then later the mother board stopped working. That last one would have cost around £200 to replace, but I had my free 5 years warranty so it cost me nothing. It performs well, I can get loads in, it's quiet and when I eventually kill it, I shall buy another if the warranty is still available. That's another bargain. Unlike the BEKO machine I bought from Currys a few years ago which stopped working only 4 days after I had bought it. Currys refused to let me return the machine which had stopped working and told me they would send someone to fix it. Highly illegal of course,and when I pointed it out, I was told it was an engineer or nothing. Citizens advice told me that Currys knows they are above the law and people individually are defenceless against them. So the engineer came out (it took 2 weeks, by which time I had a pile of smelly dirty laundry to do). Within 6 months, the BEKO washing machine was dead. So avoid Currys and avoid BEKO!

My mobile phone is another example. I had a little phone on contract. It's only a tenner a month and of course, the phone does lots of other things too with various apps. It has the satnav on it, a torch,video and camera ect. I get 500 free minutes worth of calls a month too, plus unlimited texts.So I don't use the house phone for making calls because I have to pay for each call. I use my free minutes. However I hated the phone. It was too small. So I looked about for a different phone. Did the usual research and eventually found a phone I liked. It's called a Doogee C5 pro.I got it from China for less than £50.Inserted my SIM card in and I have to say, I love it.I got it from Deal Extreme which is a company my son told me about, some 10 or more years ago. Over the years I've bought various bits from them and they always deliver and you get a tracking number too. Of course, pay with paypal or your credit card so that you can get your money back if anything goes missing, but that is advice that I'd give for buying form any website.My phone contract will be up in April and I'm currently with o2 (Tesco net), and, because of Tesco's bad practices, underpaying or not paying their suppliers, and their lies, I refuse to deal with them. After doing some research, I shall probably have a SIM only contract with gifgaf since my son is with them and the reviews online speak highly of them.
I have had contact phones for several years now and never had an upgrade.I don't need or want the very latest phone if I'm happy with how the current one performs.Sadly, I wasn't happy at all with the Samsung galaxy I had on contract, hence my buying the Doogee.
So I now use the horrible Samsung in the car as an in car CCTV. I set the video app to record at the beginning of the journey. It would only be worth £18 if I sold it, and a new in car CCTV would cost me around £25.

I like saving money so much, that my home is called 'Pinchpenny Farm'.

I'm not a miser. Not by a long chalk. But I like saving money on the things I need, in order to indulge myself occasionally on the things that I want.

So I always haggle. I never spend a tenner when a fiver will get me the same thing, and I don't spend the fiver if I decide I don't really need or want it after all.

I don't know anyone wealthy, but I know plenty of people who tell me how broke they are, while they have several tellies in the house, subscribe to Netflix and Sky, where each family member has a computer so they could watch all they wanted online for free. Where they smoke and drink and buy several takeaway meals a week.

Then there is the friend who told me she needed a new fridge freezer as hers had stopped working. She was going out that afternoon to get one. I told her to hold fast and I'd come over to see if I could fix it, or at least find out what was the problem and see if a repair was possible. I got there and discovered that someone had taken the plug out of the socket!

This friend was thousands in debt and had no common sense at all where money was concerned. She had a new smart TV, but used it only as a TV and didn't realise she could go online and watch catch up TV and films for free. She had a broadband contract with one of the most expensive companies, didn't know when her contract was up and didn't know what it was costing her each month. She wasn't aware that she could go with a cheaper company and get free phone calls as a package too.

Her home had old storage heaters which cost her over £200 a month to run, but when she was looking at replacing the heating because the house was always cold, instead of looking for the most efficient cost effective heating, she was going to get more electric heating in because the sales rep' had told her how nice they looked and that they would be cheaper than her old ones.

And this was not an old lady who was confused by modern methods with no internet access to check things out, this was a young woman in her 40's!

So, I am utterly baffled why people don't look after their hard earned money and why they prefer to not make any effort and spend more than they need to because it's easier. I call it the "press a button and pay" society.

Being frugal doesn't mean buying poor quality. I save on the things I must have, (heating, laundry drying and cooking, by using free scrap wood in the range) in order to buy good quality shoes. I will only wear Romika and Josef Seibel shoes because they are comfortable, hard wearing and all leather. And I only ever buy in their sale. I will buy a shoe which was originally £75, and reduced down to £25. They last for years because I make sure to dubbin them weekly.I bought a pair of clogs some years ago. They were on clearance at £15. I wore them day in, day out, for 3 years. I mucked out the goats, dug the garden, went through mud, drove and walked in them. I only ever took them off to go to bed.They are worth every penny.

As the old saying goes, "look after the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves".
Be frugal, don't be cheap, and don't pay more than you have to. Always haggle and always take time to research and get a bargain.

A great site for getting deals and bargain, comparing prices and claiming money back is Money saving expert. There's a forum where you can get advice, templates for various forms, and loads of great advice if you get in a pickle.

dog needs help

In 2014 I took in a Spanish rescue dog. I learned about him from a facebook page dedicated to a Spanish animal rescue. Since I was then without a large dog, and had been actively looking for some time in the UK and not finding anything (I cannot risk taking on an adult large breed with unknown history due to the fact that I have tiny dogs, plus cats and livestock), except staffies, staffy crosses and the like, I was looking at adopting from Europe. There were many many dogs which had been in dire straits. Then I came across a photo of a pup, who had been a street dog. He was, I was told, a 'mastin' cross. A Spanish mastiff cross.
As the weeks went on, I communicated with the rescue centre and was approved as his adopter. I was told that he had a slight limp and had been Xrayed and the xrays showed "a bit of cartilage wear".What I was not told was that his knee had been Xrayed, and not his hip. Now I don't know how they do things in Spain, but last time I had a large dog with a limp, and had got Xrays done, they Xrayed his hips, knees, elbows etc while he was under anaesthetic, in order to be sure that everything was as it should be. But apparently, in Spain, with a giant breed, prone to hip displaysia, they only Xray the knees.

As time went on, he limped more and more. One day, as I was brushing him, and was doing over his hips, he moved slightly, and under my hand, I felt a sickening 'clunk'. I looked closer and could see that hip pelvis didn't look right at all. It was clearly deformed.

He was at this time, still fairly young. I had him on supplements based on the info I had been given about "slight cartilage wear on hi knee". I took him to the vet right away and the vet felt all over and told me that he had no hip joint at all on the right side, and that his leg was permanently dislocated. Had the Spanish vet Xrayed his hip, this would have been visible! Further communication this morning, lead to me being told that he only limped on his knee and that's why only the knee was Xrayed and that at the time, although he was old enough to have his knee Xrayed, he was too young to have his hip Xrayed....................

 I was told by the vet to never let him run and to keep him very lean so as not to put any strain in his other hip, which was also not great, but was bearing all his weight. He was given a prescription for Tramadol, to help his pain.

Well here we are in 2016, Grippa is now fully grown and the Tramadol is wearing off. Oh he's happy enough in himself, but he cries when he stands up from a prone position. The time has come for him to be fixed up.
 After discussing the options with my vet, I discarded the idea of excising the head of the femur. He already doesn't use the leg, to the extent that it is withered and has no muscle. He needs at least one  good hip to bear his weight (currently at 38KG)

So it has been decided that he needs a hip replacement.

The problem being that it will cost £6000 which is beyond my finances. I have nothing worth selling as I live so very frugally.The insurance won't cover it, as it was an existing condition. There are not charity pet hospitals near me. I have managed to save £500 but it's taken nearly a year. He needs the operation fast.

Or he has to be put to sleep.

Obviously I don't want this to happen!

He has come on in leaps and bounds. He's so intelligent and friendly. He learned to give a paw for a treat by watching the other dogs do it. I have taught him to 'speak' on command.
I live very rural and if someone comes to the door, I need a dog who will bark or growl to warn anyone who might be up to no good. Previously, he'd wag his tail and look every inch the friendly dog he is. Now, a hand signal behind my bark, starts him barking and growling. People tend to notice that more than the wildly wagging tail lol.
I have started a fund raising page in the hopes that people might donate even a quid towards getting my big Spanish boy fixed up. He has his own facebook page with more pictures and updates.

and his donation site is:Grippa's fundraiser

His current vet is his uncle Colin at Terrington veterinary surgery, but he'll need referring to a specialist to have the operation done.

Here is his latest X-ray, taken beginning February 2016.

Note the odd way he holds his right hind leg. It looks concave but in reality, that's because he has no muscle tone at all on that side.

In fairness, the rescue centre in Spain have just said that if I want, I can send him back and their vet will operate on him, but,since the vet over there seems unable to do what is needed with an Xray, I don't trust them to operate. Plus, what sort of owner would I be, to send my boy, back to the country where people were bad to him, to go through a scary operation surrounded by strangers. A 3 days journey in a van, then pain and fear. He'd think I had abandoned him.

So no, he will be operated on by people *I* trust, and examined while I am there to reassure him. At least he will, if I can get people to help me.

At some point in the future, BBC radio Cambridgeshire may be doing a feature about him. I regularly offer advice about animals with them and when I got a call this afternoon about doing another feature, I asked for this in return, previously always having just been happy to help at no cost to them.
The local papers may also be doing an article.
I am happy to invite anyone to meet my boy. You'll discover that he is worth helping.

please donate to Grippa's fund

In the last 2 photos, you can see how withered and misshapen his leg is. The foot also turns out at right angles.
He is going for a proper assessment and more X-rays, next Tuesday at Terrington Vets which is our vet.
If I cannot raise the funds to get him fixed, he will have to be put to sleep.
He is permanently on Tramadol to control the pain. I had to chuckle at the box though as it contains a warning not to drive or operate machinery, while the label also states "for animal use" and then his name on the label.

Home, home with a range.............................

 For those wanting to live a self sufficient lifestyle, one of the things I advise them to get is a range. A range is a marvellous thing indeed. You can win the lottery and get the city persons country style Aga (pronounced Aaaaarguh), or the original cottager's Rayburn, or a large functional German Wamsler, or the modern pressed steel ones which seem to come from Europe.
And while I am on the subject of Europe, most very rural homes, will still have some kind of wood fired stove, cooker, range.
I started life with Rayburns. I learned to cook on a solid fuel Rayburn number 1. A very basic machine with no hob lids and a single oven.
Can I just quickly clarify here that when I refer to a range, I mean a proper one with real live burny fire inside a fire box, and not a gas/oil/electric one, which to me, is simply crazy. If you are on mains gas, or want to use oil, or can afford to use enough electricity to run a modest home every time you want to grill some bacon, then I'm surprised you are reading my blog. When I say "range" I mean a beast which sits in the room, needing feeding occasionally, with a fire in it's belly dispensing a feeling of wellbeing and warmth.
Anyway, back to the subject. You need to learn and understand how a range functions, to be able to use it properly. Basically the principle is this: Vents underneath fire box, allow air to be sucked up through the grate, causing the fire to burn hot. The flue pipe on the top of the stove, which goes up the chimney, needs also to be open, thus, fire + flow of air = woosh, hot hot. By opening and closing the vent and the flue you are controlling air flow. More air flow, hotter oven, less air flow, cooler. Those are the basics. Once you start to use it, you very quickly learn. It's obviously not like a normal cooker where a turn of a knob brings instant heat and turning it down brings an instant result. So how do you control your pan heat? Simple. There's a hot end of the hob, and a cool end. Instead of turning the knob to turn the gas or electric down and stop a pan from boiling over, you simply, slide the pan off the hot end, to the cool end :)
The hot end will be the end over the fire box, and the cool end is over the oven.

The Rayburn makes a great beginner's range. It's not complicated, the older ones can be got cheaply and it isn't huge, taking up half the room (like my big old Wamsler). They started life way back in 1946 and almost every year, the basic model was improved, with more features.  You can identify the age of an original Rayburn by looking at the features and I have found a great page with all the info on it here:Identifying your Rayburn.
There are a few things you need to consider before buying your secondhand Rayburn. Firstly, buy in Summer. Sounds daft right? But in Summer, people aren't generally buying heaters. They are buying air conditioners, coolers, fans and fridges. So if someone is disposing of an unwanted Rayburn because they are doing up a property in Summer, it will not go for a lot of money. Ebay is a good place to look.
Secondly, if someone is selling something like a Rayburn Royale, and tells you that it'll run your central heating, they are fibbing. Check the link I provided above, to tell you which model will do what. A Royale does indeed have a boiler and you will get lots of hot water and maybe one very small single radiator, or a towel rail from it, but not central heating.

If it's close enough, ask to go and look at it. The top should not have any cracks in. Believe me, hot cast iron with a crack in it, is bloody dangerous as it can literally explode. Chipped enamel is nothing. It isn't pretty, but, if pretty is important to you, you can always have it sand blasted and re enamelled or painted with stove paint.

Then check inside the fire box. It should be lined with fire bricks. Make a note of any which are missing or cracked as you'll have to factor in the cost of getting those replaced. They aren't expensive, and, if you get the range in the Summer and are strapped for cash, you have a few months to get the money together. And being strapped for cash is a good reason to get a range, as I'll go into later.

Then, if the model is one with a boiler (basically a metal box filled with water, behind or wrapped around the fire box, with pipes coming out of the side, leading to your hot water cylinder) ask if it is connected up to their boiler. If not, then the boiler will be useless and need replacing if you want to use it for hot water, and boilers are expensive to buy.

If in doubt, either buy from a dealer, or someone who refurbishes them and offers a guarantee. Of course, like car dealers, this means you will get peace of mind, but you'll be paying for it.
Ideally, you will also have it installed by a professional too. You really don't want to be trying to do so yourself unless you are very experienced.

Running a range on solid fuel means you need to not only learn how to use the thing, but how to use it safely. This means watching what fuel you burn. Unseasoned wood for instance, will soon clog your chimney or flue and this is dangerous. Conifers produce a lot or resin and, if the chimney gets coated with resin, which is highly flammable, you could have a chimney fire. So use only seasoned wood (more on fuels later), hardwood is best.

You also need to maintain your range and flue or chimney. This means at least twice yearly cleaning. Get the chimney swept and remove the hot plate (obviously the range needs to be cold), sweep out all the soot which has collected under the hob plate and around the flue control and inside the flue pipe.

You wouldn't drive your car if it had the exhaust leaking into the interior and a blocked chimney or flue is the same principle. Safety first.....always !

If you haven't been put off by this, then I'd say, read up. There is loads of info online. Join forums, speak to people (like myself) who have spent decades living with a solid fuel range, then start looking at different makes and models. But for dipping your toe into the water so to speak, a small old Rayburn costing no more than £100 max' (you can sometimes get them for nothing) is the way to start.
 When you've got the hang of it , there's nothing nicer than coming downstairs on an icy Winter's morning, to a snug cosy kitchen.

A range will save you money too. I made myself a drying rack which hangs above my current range. Some lengths of wooden skirting board (donated by my neighbour who was refurbishing his home, some lengths of dowel that I bought, some nylon rope which was left over from a roll I'd used to make washing lines outside, and some heavy duty screw in hooks and a couple of pulleys was what I used. If you are rich, you can buy a rack with cast iron ends. It'll cost you around £70 for a little 4 foot one. They are called 'Sheila maid', or 'laundry maid'. Mine is Pammy made and is 7 feet long with a total of 42 feet of drying space!

 I built a box frame by screwing the skirting board together. It's 7 feet long and 18 inches deep. You'll need a centre brace to make it strong. Drill holes through the centre brace and the end bits, to allow you to place your dowelling to make the bars which your laundry will hang over. Make sure they line up. Screw an eye into each corner of the frame and on each end, tie a length of your strong nylon rope from one eye to the other to form an arc or loop.
I took some photos this morning to explain it all and I hope this will give you more of an insight than the written word.

 note cord (green) from the right hand end of the rack, does not go through the pulley, but over the heavy duty hook in the ceiling.

 Now, your Aga (Aaaaarguh) was the range they had up at the manor house. Cook used it. It was fueled by anthracite. It didn't run radiators. The cottager (peasants like myself) had a Rayburn. It was the right size (small) to fit in our humble hovels. The Rayburn was designed to burn just about anything, logs, coal, anthracite, peat. Much more versatile. On my range I burn, old shoes, junk mail, cardboard from packages I get, all the wrappings if I buy anything in packages, plus old cat litter including the turds. I use wood based cat litter and have lots of cats. The litter gets used by them first, the litter trays get cleaned twice a day, sifting the turds from the dry pellets and scooping any wet litter too. It goes into a bucket then tipped into the range. In India they burn cow poo, in Africa, elephant and Rhino poo, in Norway reindeer poo so it seems that poo = fuel. I have to pay for the wood based cat litter so I may as well get full use out of it, plus it saves on disposal. It doesn't up in land fill.I also smash up broken pallets and burn those. I get them free by going to builders merchants and industrial places and asking nicely. I always leave the areas tidy when I'm collecting and am always polite.
 It helps the companies as they don't have to hire a skip and pay for the removal.For this though you really need to have access to either a van, or a car and trailer such as I have.
I also use old damaged furniture even if it's chipboard or MDF. There is controversy about whether these should be used because of how they are made, but frankly if the glue is nasty stuff when burned, it'll still be nasty stuff in landfill when it leaches out into the soil and groundwater, so I burn it. If you hoose to burn just ordinary untreated wood, this then is still not useless once it's been burned. You add the ash to your compost heap or raised beds. Never waste anything!

If you have properly installed your range, and your flues and chimneys are clean and clear, you won't smell the burning poo or cat litter or anything else. It all goes out of the chimney.
 I once went through one of the coldest winters we have had, cooking, using the oven, boiling the kettle, heating the whole of the downstairs and drying my laundry........................for free, by using scavenged scrap wood!

BRRRRR but I was toasty warm indoors.

 So, this is why I advise people to install a range if they can, and if they want to save money. After all, the money I save on boiling kettles, drying laundry, cooking and heating, can be put to better use elsewhere.


 Here's my trusty old Wamsler. I did bedding yesterday and even folded over, the double duvet covers were dry in half an hour. On the table (lower right) is the double duvet I had washed and dried on the rack, with the door mat (home made by myself by knitting a huge ball of twine I'd been given) laying on top. You can see the tea pot sitting on the hob ensuring lots of hot tea.

The reason I now have a Wamsler instead of a Rayburn is because I like to cook. The whole of the top of the Wamsler, is the cooking area, as opposed to a small hob on a Rayburn. The Wamsler also has several useful functions, like the ability to raise and lower the grate inside the fire box. This means that in winter, you can put really big long bits of wood, or, if you are to be away from home for some hours, load it up with the appropriate anthracite, and close all the vents once it's glowing, meaning that it will burn slowly all day long. That's what I did here. You can't see the temperature gauge on the oven door but it is showing only 90C. That's barely warm.(just perfect to put a rice pudding in overnight)

The other function it has is that by moving a lever on the front, I can open a vent inside, allowing heat to either travel around the oven if I need to roast or bake. Or close off the oven and heat the hot plate, if I need to fry or boil the kettle, and of course, by making all the vents shut, plus closing the flue, it just burns slowly with little heat. I would not hang my laundry so close to a Rayburn as they simply aren't as controllable.

I paid £60 for my Wamsler on ebay. It was sited down in the west country and I live in north Cambridgeshire. I used a pallet company to transport it. The seller had it on a pallet in his barn so it was easily shifted onto the lorry and brought right to my house at a cost of £35.