As well as posting my adventures as long haul cabin crew in the form of Suzi, ( Love, Suzi x) I’m going to update you with my recent adventures. This is an excerpt of a book I’m writing called From London to Lewes about how my family and I changed our lives.

This is our story:-

After a lifetime of London living, an urban family, used to the conveniences of the city try adapting to life in the country. Where on earth do we think of moving to and how insane are we to even consider it?

Shortages

          It wasn’t until my daughter shouted from the bathroom that her shower was cold that I realised we’d run out of oil. As far as I was concerned, Other Half, Nick was the oil monitor, but he thought it was me so, of course, between us we’d forgotten to check the gauge on the tank as it slipped lower and lower towards disaster.

The beast behind the garage.

          Whilst we were living in London this wouldn’t have happened as we were gas guzzlers. Being on the mains for our gas supply meant that we never had to give it a second thought, until the bill came in of course. The whole business of having to feed with oil the huge, silent beast that lurks behind the garage is foreign to us. And with this recent cold weather, I hadn’t realised just how quickly it would slurp it up. So we made a frantic call to the oil suppliers. ‘Sorry’, came the reply. ‘We’re really busy at the moment; we can put you on the list for delivery on Monday.’

Garden under snow

          ‘Monday!’ I shrieked when I heard. ‘It’s Wednesday, I’ll never make it that long without heating.’

          ‘Don’t panic,’ my ever optimistic husband announced. ‘I remember our neighbour doing the same thing and saying he’d got some barrels to tide him over. I’ll ask him where he got them from.’

          Two hours later, I’ve borrowed barrels from our ever helpful neighbours, and Nick, after dashing off to the garage has overwhelmed us all with his new, eau de oil perfume after pouring the oil into the tank.

          ‘He did say he had to suck the oil through the pipe to get it started though,’ Nick grinned at me.

          ‘No one in their right mind would ever do that,’ I replied as we tried to fire up the boiler unsuccessfully.

          Twenty four hours and five layers of clothes later, I was a desperate woman. ‘Find me the hose pipe to suck before I freeze to death,’ I demanded.

          Luckily for me, Nick put his engineer’s thinking cap on and came up with a contraption that would have earned him a Blue Peter badge. When I walked into the utility room he was bent over an old vacuum cleaner, its hose pipe attached to the boiler by a piece of clear, plastic bottle that had been bent and duck-taped into place to form a connection. The liquid gold was gently trickling along the pipe and up to where it should be. Tentatively he pushed the red button to fire up the boiler. I’ve never been so glad to hear the hum of a machine in all my life.

           We have learnt our lesson, believe me. I will be checking the gauge on the oil tank regularly from now on, but just in case you do the same as us and run out, we have the most marvelous, hand made, oil sucking machine to be found this side of the Downs we could lend you.

My favourite walk along the Cuckmere river.

Teresa x

LOVE, SUZI x – letters from a long haul stewardess. My latest book is now available from Amazon as a paperback or ebook.