Snow, sills and orange cake

We have snow on the tops at last. I always compare the weather at this time of the year with when we arrived on the island two years ago in the teeth of a storm, and both subsequent years have been warmer. I was beginning to wonder if we’d see any snow at all, but temperatures plummeted a few days ago and we now have a glorious white dusting on the high peaks.

The MVHR and the heating are operating well in the house. It’s already significantly warmer and more stable in temperature than the caravan.

As we shiver and dress in the damp cold of 5°C mornings I hold onto the fact that we’ll be in the house in a few weeks time. No more icy mornings playing the duvet game trying to dress without exposing any bare flesh to the elements.

After a wait of several weeks the wood for the sills arrived this afternoon, cheerfully delivered by our local sawmill guy. In the end he decided that the pews would be rather wasted if we were to refinish them for sills, and that he would prefer to preserve the original patina, so declined to sell them to us and found us suitable 4m lengths of local Douglas fir instead.

I can’t say that I blame him, although I was quite taken by the idea of old wood having a second life in our new home. But at least that patina, burnished by the bottoms of the righteous as it was, will be protected.

Husband has been fitting sockets, switches and lights like a demon and will move onto one of the bathrooms next week. Once we are electrickified and have a working toilet and shower, we’re in!

The fact that the house is still stuffed to the rafters with building materials, tools, equipment, wood and boxes of everything that you can think of is another hurdle to get over. Once everything is connected up…

In the meantime I have tried a new recipe in my sloping caravan mini oven. This may be one of the very last cakes I bake in here, isn’t that such a strange thought. My new ovens await, sitting there, smugly level, shiny and pristine.

This is Nigel Slaters orange and poppy seed cake, sticky with a fresh orange and marmalade glaze which I hope won’t taste any less good for it’s signature 45° slope.