Wood

Our wood for the winter has arrived. In order to get it, I had to use my best French on the phone to a local french farmer. The wood is priced by the 'stere' and we ordered 6 steres. Combined with the wood we already have stored, this should be enough to get us pretty much through the winter. The quality of the wood sold can be variable and last year, we made the mistake of buying some unseasoned wood-and initially thought the problem was with our newly installed wood burner when actually it was a problem with the wood. The wood burner also powers a total of 8 radiators placed throughout the house. This wood is of much better quality-a mixture of well seasoned beech and oak which smells fantastic. It actually took quite a while to move it into the next door barn-luckily we did have some help-now M will start splitting some of the logs and I can stack them. Nothing is ever straightforward here. It's not a convenient life. Having said that, there's something very reassuring about paying in advance for your fuel-and then being able to see exactly how much of it you've used-rather than just anxiously waiting for the heating bills to come in in the new year.