Readying for Winter

Our school is still heated by a coal fired boiler. With the current cold snap the time is fast approaching when we will want those heaters going. Each autumn we have to get the engineers out to check it and make sure everything is okay before we can fire it up again.

Today was the day. I had just finished teaching and was heading back to my office when I glanced down into the coal shed. I had to rush off to get my camera so that I could capture this. It made me think of those poor urchins who used to be sent up chimneys to clean them. Very Dickensian.