Success and more gifts

After writing my previous post about my struggles with the little mud oven, I decided to have another go at fixing it up, so I attacked it with a trowel and managed to hack out a bigger door. This made a huge difference. The fire took with one match (whereas previously I'd used two boxes of matches trying to get a blaze going), and burnt merrily. I kept it burning for about an hour, as the book instructs, then used it to cook a scone. I was amazed that it actually worked, and am now inspired to try insulating this small oven before going on to make the real thing.

Here are some photos of the oven after I'd cut out a bigger door, and the beautifully cooked (actually slightly overdone) scone.

    (click on each image to see a larger photo)

In terms of gifts, I forgot in my last post to mention some of the other interesting things we received. My boss was responsible for the most unusual gift - she gave us some condoms - well, actually she gave them to someone in South Africa on our behalf, through Oxfam Unwrapped, but we thought it was a great idea. My parents kindly gave me a wind-up torch that has no bulb (just LEDs) and no batteries, and a neat little portable solar charger that can charge up mobile phones, MP3 players and other such devices.

Comments

[Julie]

dear Hilary,

A scone! How sweet.

Julie.