It’s winter, and suddenly proper winter: the heavy duvet is on the bed, the blinds are down at night, the heat pump is on, the cats come in at night.

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Normally our fireplace would be going each night too, cheerfully crackling away in the grate. It gives me something to do: chop the wood, fetch the wood, make the fire, fret about the fire, look at the fire, talk about the fire, research the price of wood. I don’t understand people who don’t like having a fire: what do they do when it gets dark?

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At the end of last winter, though, I realised the fireplace was in need of some maintenance. It’s 120 years old after all. Then I realised that the room it’s in is going to be a bedroom, one day, if we can ever get this bloody renovation off the ground. (That’s another – painful – story and one I shan’t bore you with.)

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Then I remembered we should get the chimney repaired, because when we bought the house the building inspector said the mortar between the bricks would need eplacing. So I rang the delightful Phil, a brickie who specialises in old chimneys who has a delightful staffie called Suey, and he gave us a quote to fix it.

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It wasn’t cheap, but there was no way around it, and so we had the side of the house scaffolded and Phil spent a week rebuilding the chimney, and we had scaff drinks on the Sunday night to celebrate that finally, after six years of going around in circles, we had Done Something to the house.

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Phil rebuilt the chimney and added a very nice pair of cowls to the top. He had shrouded it with tarpaulins so we couldn’t see what was going on until he finished and voilà! We had a new chimney. It was like one of those weird Get Ready With Me Instagram things where you jump into your clothes.

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We had the roof painted at the same time: they removed three dead TV aerials, which are still in the back garden, and painted it to match Colorsteel Lignite – a delicious shade of brown. Suddenly our house looks very smart indeed – or at least it does from the gutters up.

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I got Phil to quote on fixing our fireplace. It was going to be quite expensive, but it would have been nice. But do we need a working fireplace in what will be a bedroom? Maybe.

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We decided to wait, and then it got cold. The heat pump’s working double time, and for some reason, possibly relating to the building site next door not having their gutters connected yet, the condensation's gone nuts.

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I think I might ring Phil.

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