A new oven.

I’m learning to use a new oven. Again. And sure, it’s better than cooking everything on a gas BBQ and in a pizza oven (although the pizza oven absolutely has my heart for bread baking), but I hate learning a new oven. It’s gas, and the preheat light doesn’t work, so I never know if I’m at temp or not.

It’s been a long time since I cooked on gas, and I’m remembering how, slowly. I haven’t burned too many things.

The bus is nice. It would be amazing if we were travelling, and still had a house to come home to. If it were insulated. If I weren’t uncomfortable and always too hot or too cold. If I had somewhere to sit that didn’t make my bones fall out of place.

But hey, at least I have a tiny kitchen.

The oven in the Airbnb was tricky – it ran hot, and one hot plate only worked on the highest temp, and you could see where previous people had put overheated pots onto the Formica counters. Five weeks in an Airbnb and I hated cooking, hated trying to feed us all, hated losing something I normally enjoy. The pans were all second hand and terrible, saved as “good enough” but not really. No sharp knives, no knife sharpener, two tea towels in the entire house.

The view was great though. I mean, the water, the river, the swans. $350 a night view.

The whole Airbnb felt dreamlike. It also felt like an abomination that a house that size wasn’t filled with a family permanently. The insurance company paid more than 12k for us to stay there for five weeks and that feels like some sort of legal scam, but there you go.

And now we’re home again. It’s been three months since we lost everything, and gained a bus. At least there’s a bus. And a kitchen, and a new oven to learn how to use.

Tomorrow we get the cables laid for the start of electricity reconnection. We have to apply for an entirely new connection again, because everything is bullshit when your house burns down. We won’t have (non-generator) power for a bit yet, but all progress is good progress. Expensive progress.

Let’s hope insurance settles soon.