Seasoned. Split. Stacked. Sorted.

      Another pre-Christmas and beginning of winter task is completed on a morning that felt like snow was imminent, but if the snow should arrive we are ready for the worst that the weather would like to throw at us. The logs are stacked and in place and ready for use, they're mostly silver birch, which smells wonderfully scented when it is burning, along with some oak and ash. The next job is to get the Christmas tree into the house and in position in the hall so that that it is ready for the decorating detail to begin work.
      But back to the logs, the stack has been checked by my assistant who has been under my feet, barking at the wheelbarrow and generally getting in the way for the last two hours. Now the sun has finally come out from behind the clouds and we're back indoors, me with a well-earned coffee, she's lying in a pool of sunlight on the kitchen floor feeling exhausted.
      It's a hard life waiting for the woodburner to be fired up.