Our saga with an aga

When we first walked into what is now our kitchen some ten months ago, the first thing I said was, wow, an aga.

It was a thing of beauty. What with the flagstones and the wooden beam I knew this house had to be mine. However, as time went on and we managed to sell our house and put an offer on this one which was accepted, I started to have doubts. We came to look again at the house and the kitchen worried me. It was dark, there was little light coming in the windows and the units were oak. The aga, a huge four oven aga, was black.

It wasn’t just that though. The aga had to be switched off in the summer because of the heat it generated and there wasn’t any practical room for an electric oven. Plus I want to bake cakes and write recipes – it would be a struggle coming up with specific temperatures with an aga.

I knew instinctively that whilst the idea of an aga appealed to me, the practicalities and realities of one didn’t. Plus, twenty pound a week to run in oil?! It doesn’t even heat the rest of the house.

It’s funny though, when you tell people you are going to sell the aga. Many people have been shocked. As though you are committing an immortal sin. Oh, I wouldn’t sell it, they would say. Some to the point of rudeness.

I know they are beautiful. But is just not for me.

So today was the day when it was taken away. Have you ever seen the inside of an aga? Fascinating. It gets dismantled, obviously, it’s as heavy as hell. Inside are tiny little balls of stone plus, if you’re as lucky as us, a dead bird at the bottom of the flue.

It’s gone now and the kitchen looks so much lighter. The aga was too big and too dark for this room. It sucked the light right out of it. I’ve  now got so much more space to move on that side of the kitchen. I could skip, I’m so pleased. (And I literally can now as I have the room.)

In the meantime I’ve got my table top oven on my son’s desk in its place. I’ve lasted three months with this table top oven and two ring hob. Surely a little longer won’t kill me.

As long as I’ve got a decent oven by Christmas.