Reasons to be Cheerful - 5

May 6 and we had our first barbecue this year - actually it was not the first as I have done some on a silly tin bowl thing with charcoal - but over the last couple of weekends I have built a proper “Australian” barbecue and today I could cook vast quantities of chicken legs on the hot steel plates.

Most of the stone and steel I have used to make this barbecue is many centuries old and the base is a large casting from a 14th century fireplace weighing over 200 kg - the rest is out of other old fireplaces I have salvaged.

This gives me a facility I can now use to cook everything at the same time from chicken (which takes an hour to do properly) to sausages and merguez which only take a few seconds.

So I can now feed over a hundred people in our garden, if you happen to be passing Montblanc on a sunny summers evening, call in - as long as you have a few bottles of wine to share - you are most welcome.