The Oven Shelf

How enterprising our parents used to be. Without the aid of modern technology they still managed to come up with a solution to every problem. I don't know whether this story was peculiar to our house or whether other people did the same thing. When I was growing up we lived in a two up and two down cottage. The only heat in the house came from an open fire in the living room. It was part of the old black lead grate, named so, because it was polished with black lead to clean it. The fire was in the middle of the grate with an oven on the left and a boiler on the right. Not only did the fire heat the room but it also heated the oven for cooking and the boiler for hot water. The upstairs of the house had no heat at all. There was a small fire place in one bedroom but this, for some reason, was never used. Going to bed on a real cold winter's night was not an experience to look forward to. Neither, in those days, did you have a nice warm duvet to snuggle down under. However, even on the coldest of nights I never ever got into a cold bed. About half an hour before going to bed mother would take one of the shelves out of the oven. When it had cooled down to a bearable temperature she would wrap the oven shelf in a piece of cloth and put it in the bed. By the time I went to bed, clutching a rubber hot water bottle, the oven shelf had served it's purpose and warmed the bed through. It was then removed and I climbed into a nice warm bed, with my hot water bottle for on-going heat. My third line of defence was our family cat Fluffy, a long haired grey Persian. He knew where it was going to be warm and slept in the bed with me. Between the oven shelf, the hot water bottle and Fluffy I just about managed to stay warm until morning. Sounds daft, but it worked!

Brainteaser - Wednesday's Answer

The answer to the Brainteaser that appeared in yesterday's Journal is as follows:

On a chess board

Kings & Queens, Bishops and Rooks. Easy if you know the answer!

Check You Haven't Got Worms

I was quite alarmed when I read the following report. Sky news claimed on Monday that a computer virus that attacks Microsoft Windows is spreading at an alarming rate. It is reportedly affecting thousands of UK offices including Ministry Of Defence computers. The virus is known as Conficker, Kido or Downadup. The virus was first identified last October with Russia, China, Brazil and India worst affected. The worm uses a predefined set of passwords against those being used on other computers. If it finds a match it will automatically download malicious programs from hackers websites with devastating effect. Eddy Willems, a security analyst, advises users to check their computer's security to ensure that their anti-virus, operating system and firewall are up to date. Remember, computer viruses can give you a much bigger headache than any flu virus.