Me relaxing on the Aga in dragon heat
You have probably worked out by now that I am named the Tiddler by my adopted household. I am sure its because of my daintiness: I keep my weight to under 3kg, I’m a petite puss. It has been mooted that I have the name because I have had a problem directing my pee pee to acceptable locations, but I tell you all urine marking has been entirely intentional and necessary to maintain my dominant household status. And I like to pee standing up. Its my old joints, right? Its not my fault they didn’t neuter me till age 16. I got into certain – habits.
Enough about me for now, I bet you want to know about that Hearth Dragon. Some people think my human pet must be the dragon but NO! we have a real one. The grandkids look for it each time they come. You see, the secret of good baking is to have a pet dragon nesting inside your stove. They used to come as standard with all the coal-fired models, but I believe the habitat in the electric versions doesn’t suit them and oil gives them indigestion.
Whenever the wind blows hard, especially from the west, Dragon becomes very excited. The Aga hotplate glows fiercely orange with its’ glee and when my pet opens the plug to feed more coal to the dragon, a ball of flames bursts out and scorches any fur in range. I am wise to that now and move my delicate butt 3 feet away to be safe. My human has lost eyebrows that way, she is not as smart as me. Most of the time the dragon curls up small in the fuel bowl inside the Aga, keeping us all warm with its fiery breath. It flares the side of the water-heater so human has hot water to wash pots in and keeps the stove toasty warm ready to cook at all hours. When she takes the ashes out from below its easy to see the orange glow that signifies Dragon is in residence.
Sometimes the dragon takes a holiday. I think thats best if this is in the summer so I can be warm-bottomed when the weather is chill. As you can see, I have persuade my human to keep suitable beds on top of the Aga for my comfort and insulation. My Human uses Dragon’s occasional absence to clean chimneys and flues and all that. Then she has the bother of coaxing the beast back into work again. Its a process involving bribery with compressed peat blocks which apparently are like chocolate to Aga dragons. It can make a terrible stink: I call this dragon-breath.
So now you know: I sleep with a dragon. Every girl should have a pet that breathes fire. And my pet does all the baking work too.
(Note to the uninitiated from T [contact-form subject='[Tiddler%26#039;s tales from the dragon%26#039;s hearth’][contact-field label=’Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Email’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Comment’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form] he Human: re-lighting cold stoves is a tedious process as they have to be gradually warmed- paper, wood, peat, anthracite and if really cold, fired up from the base of the fire using a blow-torch. For that reason I believe many people have given up keeping domestic dragons, sorry, stoves and use electric cookers. Its not half as much fun or as dusty. The cooking results however are amazing on our old Smokey-Joe dragon-home.)