We are moving house and I will say goodbye to our beehive clay oven. This is a wood-fired oven we got on a whim, thinking myself to be quite the primitive cook that would attempt all sorts of derring-do adventures outdoors. To fire it, you set light to a couple of hardwood logs inside, block the opening at the front and leave for three hours to heat. Next the red-white ashes are swept to the back of the oven. By this time the oven heat registers around 400°C – enough to cook a pizza in a minute. Once the heat lowers, approximately 45 minutes later, a leg of lamb or whole chicken can be roasted inside.The beehive and I had a lot of fun. I dare say that as a female cook bored of the blistering business of cooking over a barbecue, the oven was an al-fresco revelation. I could – e