An AGA cooker is a solid lump of cast iron that stores heat. Basically, it’s like having a steam engine in your kitchen and its green credentials would be similar.

We have one because it was there when we bought the house. It might make sense as the house has a BER rating of Z minus and is draughtier than a windfarm.

The always-on oil-fired four oven AGA makes living in our ancient kitchen possible and without it, Mrs P and the two (doggy) lads would be gone.

When we were courting and I told the future Mrs P I had a kitchen with an AGA, she instantly fell in love (with the AGA) and brought our marriage forward by years. Without it, it wouldn’t have happened at all. You see women love an AGA for drying clothes, baking and roasting, and a dozen other things. My friend Michael says he would find it easier to tell his wife he’s having an affair than break the news to her that their AGA has gone out overnight.

Part of this female love affair with AGA cookers may be due to the fact that the late Myrtle Allen of Ballymaloe fame frequently sung the praises of hers. Ever on the Late Late Show, she pronounced it as Awe-ga, as posh people do. It’s always been an Ahhh-gaaaa with us.

There’s also the romantic association of AGAs with rambling old rose-clad (or wisteria-) farmhouses and hearty Sunday roasts and winter-warming stews. Wholesome homecooked food with happy rosy-cheeked Bisto kids around the table, straight out of Enid Blyton. An AGA and a Pot Noodle have never met, or even appeared in the same sentence until now.

I grew up with a 1947 AGA that was originally coal-fired, but converted to oil and is still working today. That’s good, because it’s about €25,000 for a new one. And it’ll guzzle 3,000l of kerosene every year. With the Greens closing the bogs, AGAs could be next.

But despite a lifetime’s exposure to AGAs, I don’t like them, mostly because they have a mind of their own. They’re about as reliable as cheap toilet paper. Despite regular servicing – de-carboning, which I mostly do myself – it could let you down with a sudden whoosh of black smuts and fumes sent billowing throughout the house.

Likely it’ll go out when you most need it most, usually Christmas Day. No dinner, no hot water and a freezing kitchen, all of which goes down like the Titanic.

Ours has me driven demented for the past two weeks. I had it burning cleaner and hotter than a nuclear reactor since the Christmas showdown, but recently it went into Chernobyl-mode and contaminated the house and half of Kildalkey. Twice. Maybe it’s time to convert the old polluting beast to green electricity. There might even be a TAMS grant to do it.

In the fields

May, with just 48mm rain, has been on the dry side. Spring crops unlike winter ones need regular watering, but I think the balance is about right. The April-sown barley has had its first fungicide and has closed the wide Sprinter rows nicely. But the later sowings of arable silage are struggling. The beans are a picture and have had a pre-flowering graminicide to control a flush of brome and it’s a good opportunity to do this.

But I have to revert to the AGA. At my wits end, I bought a 200ml bottle of Exocet kerosene fuel additive and chucked it into the tank with a stir. The stuff is rocket fuel – my beautiful AGA quickly built up a head of steam and is now running cleaner and hotter than any aul’ green electric one. For now.