Sweep

We had our chimney swept the other day.   Now this is work that has hardly changed in several hundred years.  Maybe we don't put children down the chimney any more, but it's still a case of brushes, and long pieces of screw-in poles.

Living in the mountains with cold nights one of the pleasures is burning logs on an open fire.  We also use those clever paraffin logs for the purpose, they help implement the regular wooden types.  But there's the question of whether or not they leave flammable deposits, which could cause fires in the flu.  So along came the sweep about 12 months after his last visit.  It took about 15 minutes and in spite of his dire warnings, there was only about a cup full of soot to collect after the sweeping.  I therefore shall not be repeating the exercise next year as it seems at $125, a little too expensive an operation to keep on doing.