Letter to Stove

Dear Stove, 

I’m starting to feel better after my Christmas chest infection (I think that this was the present that my two girls got for me. I should probably slip them the White Co. catalogue next year and circle a few things) and I am so excited you are here. 

Oh how delighted we were to find you under the Christmas tree! Sorry we don’t have you at the plot yet — I just can’t quite bring myself to limp up to the plot clutching my chest yet. 

Is it wrong that I want to try you out already? It is wrong isn’t it. I’m pretty certain the desk would catch light if I did. And, as I am always telling the girls, this is a rented house you know. And you can’t go about destroying a rented house in the same manner that a person could if they owned the place, can we? 

Oh, I can’t wait to do some allotment cooking on you. In my mind I can already see a pan of water boiling up some sweetcorn, or some onions frying off… but all that is so very far away. And dependent on some success growing things. I want to make something now. But what? There’s not much up there at the moment but mud. Mud… mud… 

What would Nigel Slater do? He’d have an idea up his sleeve. Mud mixed with a bit of buttermilk on toasted sourdough? Yes! That’s the kind of thing he’d go for I’m sure. Mmm. Am I still a bit ill and delirious? Or does that sound brilliant to you too Stove? 

If it doesn’t; there’s always coffee. 

Yours,

Plotholder 7a

ps – thanks family-members for our allotment gifts. We will do you proud this year! x