Paraffin and feeds

One of the paraffin heaters arrived today and I have been changing the wick and testing it. There is less smell than I remember and a lot more heat. In my old Grannies house (no not our Granny, my granny) I remember there were several paraffin heaters that would be lit half an hour before you were to use that particular room, ie just before you were to have a bath it was lit to warm up the bathroom. As I remember it (but it is all distinctly hazy) they did not exactly throw out the heat and every room seemed freezing. Maybe granny didn't light them. Hey, maybe my inability to spend money is genetic and has been passed down to me. I'm sure all you old people reading this will have memories of paraffin heaters. I'll pull up a sand bag and you can tell me stories of the war.

The old Tilley lamp was also tested as that mantle had arrived too. This was less successful as I was using petrol instead of meths to pre-heat it. I had to print off instructions from t'internet as I couldn't remember how it worked. The pre-heating element burst into flames and everything went black including the mantle, glass and my hands as I tried to put out the inferno. Trying again after cleaning up the spillages, the same thing happened but when I was attempting to get it up to pressure, paraffin started spurting out of the pump and all over my hands and workbench. The leather pump element had parted company from itself and there was nothing keeping the paraffin from escaping under pressure. Luckily I managed to get it all under control before I set my workshop alight. I have now ordered the relevant parts for the next episode of lamp lighting. I think it would be best if I used meths instead of the petrol.

I just got my narrowboat blog feeds up to 52. I really had no idea when I first started this that there would be fifty other people out there with blogs on their narrowboats or potential narrowboats. There are themes that run through many of them and some are obviously more interesting than others. But as Les on nbValerie says on his blog when someone (Anon) commented that his blog was “lifeless”, why waste your time reading something you don't enjoy. It's not lifeless by the way. I enjoy it and all the rest of them.