My aga love event is cooling

By Julia Llewellyn Smith 531PM GMT twenty March 2010

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The heart of the home Julia Llewellyn Smith with her dear Aga

It began when the gas check landed on the mat. "This is outrageous," my father James yelled. "Theres no approach we can equates to this." The check in subject lonesome 7 weeks in between Jan and Feb this year. It came to �682.30.

Given marry been on legal holiday for one of those weeks, the figure was shocking. James had no disbelief where the censure lay. "Its your Aga," he declared. "Its got to go."

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Wed huddled turn it by out the miserable winter, marry eaten unconstrained warming casseroles slow-cooked in the bottom oven. The awaiting of losing the Aga was devastating.

I hadnt regularly been an Aga aficionado. I regarded them as standing black that people pretentiously described as "best friends". They were the toys of Marie-Antoinettish pseuds who longed for to fool around at vital in a farmhouse in Wales when essentially they were sidestep account managers from Notting Hill. Madonna and Guy Ritchie had one, usually as they donned Hunter wellies and Barbours and claimed to love sport and fishing. (Now I consternation if may be they divorced after a row over the gas bill.)

Then 4 years ago we paid for a residence with an Aga in situ.

I was so frightened of the pile of iron that for weeks we lived off x-ray meals. Finally I paid for an Aga guide book and detected that Agas were essentially far simpler to make make use of of than required cookers. Not usually that but all that came out of it was definitely delectable. The deep, thick walls of the stand in ovens constructed an incredibly tricky duck and spinach curry, and a fry lamb so proposal the beef fell off the bones.

And so a great and astonishing love event began. Like any converts, we were evangelical. "Its marvellous," we wearied the friends. "If you wish to fry a chicken, usually force it in the tip oven and an hour after the done. Its coupler potatoes are so feathery and the toast is sublime."

Only one dared to essentially voice the truth. "Heavens youre smug," she pronounced after Id launched in to a reborn-Nigella acknowledgment to dump scones done on the prohibited plate.

Most, however, simply looked sceptical. "But how does it work?" theyd ask. "Surely, it cant be incited on all the time?"

James and I would eye each alternative guiltily. "Well, yes. It is. But thats great! It equates to you can lift a pizza out of the freezer at 3AM and itll be ready in minutes, with such a crispy bottom ..."

Our friends had speckled the vivid pattern flaw. When David Cameron immune the Aga in his subdivision home by observant he usually incited it on when he was there, it done me disbelief his fitness to lead the country. Because Agas usually work scrupulously if theyre incited on all the time. All day, all night, all year round. When were on holiday, or at the tallness of summer (which opportunely has lasted for usually dual days in new years) the Aga ceaselessly radiates invalid heat. As gas prices soar, were literally blazing money.

Still, we one after an additional to find get-outs. We work at home and make make use of of the Aga on and off all day, so we were utilizing it at full capacity. But some-more and more, confusion gradual my delight of my luscious venison casseroles. Last year environmentalist George Monbiot launched a electioneer opposite middle-class Aga owners. "Ive lost equate of the series of aspirational middle-class greens I know who own one of these monsters and hold that they are someway concordant maybe since they see great in a nation kitchen with a immature lifestyle," he said.

The annual CO footprint of my two-oven gas Aga is 4 tons, I discovered, dual thirds of what an complete normal British home emits in a year, a total ton some-more than supervision targets for particular houses by 2020. In this light, my sneering at my neighbours for pushing 4x4s, my rubbishing square heaters and my recurrent recycling of the bulb of loo rolls seemed deeply ironic.

Tessa Glass, a mom of two, who has an Aga in her second home (another eco crime) in Sussex refuses to hold she is an Aga lout, designedly assisting sea levels rise, all so she can sneer undiluted Yorkshire puddings.

"But Aga owners are green," she protests. "Theyre the kind of people who love the nation and have dogs. Apart from the footballers wives, that is." Shes taken by surpise when I insist that drifting to New York twice a year would equates to less extinction to the sleet forests. "La la la, not listening," she cries.

Not listening, indeed. The list of luminary Aga owners who additionally confess to be eco warriors creates waggish reading. Sting and Trudie Styler harangue us about the Amazon but natch they own one. Prince Charles is perpetually notice us of meridian Armageddon but his wife, Camilla Parker Bowles, "wouldnt prepare on anything else."

Colin Firth, whose mother runs a chichi "green" store is an additional fan. Not so most false as obscure is Sharon Stones avowal that an Aga is the initial thing she would save in a fire, though the lightest indication weighs 64 stone.

Ive been you do all I can to equivalent my Agas footprint. I never expostulate and we have no apart kettle or toaster and no decrease dryer, meaning, as one school-mum crony cheerily forked out "whenever I travel past your residence I can see your soppy knickers on the cooker."

Were not the usually ones to be carrying second thoughts. Last week Aga voiced annual increase had forsaken by 97 per cent, from �14.4 million to �500,000 (although sales leveled out in the second half of the year).

After the gas check shocker, the Aga is a severely involved class similar to a Giant Panda. I frantically investigated ways to safety it. I looked in to installing AIMS, Agas new "intelligent management" system, that effectively creates the cooker feverishness up usually when you need it. But the cost for acclimatisation was around �2000 (now on sale at a still pricey �1200), the cost of a decent range cooker.

I remembered the frozen week end the Aga pennyless and I had to tarry dual days with no feverishness in the kitchen, creation coffee in the microwave, prior to forking out �400 for an puncture call out. Servicing the savage costs around �150 a year.

Despite this, I couldnt bear to let go. Mary Berry, writer of dozens of Aga prepare books, sympathises. "I know of so most husbands who contend "Good God, this is costing a lot of income but the residence would be unfortunate but it. Its at the heart of the home the young kids did their task by it, my father dries the dogs on it, Ive usually cleared a jumper and folded it on one of the lids so it wouldnt need ironing. I dont wish to have Botox or my varicose veins sorted so since not concede myself this luxury."

Inspired by Berry, I upped my campaign. There were alternative reasons for the beast check the been the coldest winter in twenty-five years, we live in a big, draughty Victorian residence and operative from home equates to the heating is roughly regularly on. Mercifully, a heating operative reliable this. He distributed the Aga is costing us around �14 a week and the miss of room thermostats was a bigger culprit. "People outlay �50 a month on wire television," I begged James. "Ill leave Americas Next Top Model for hold up in lapse for the Aga."

So the Aga is reprieved. But I fright the stay is temporary. Its similar to vital with an erring husband, branch a blind eye to his viewable flaws, since I cant suppose hold up but him. But at slightest therell still be dump scones for tea.