Granola with yo gurt and blackberries this morning. Yum. THG does a very good granola. None of this sugary shop bought stuff. We picked the blackberries ourselves. Was a good harvest in 2023. Funny to be looking back at 2023 now. I had grown used to it. All things come to pass.
JPR died – you will all have heard this by now, first on social media and then on the news on the wireless. He was part of the wallpaper in the seventies in Wales. Aged seventy four. You felt comfortable if JPR was in the team. I lament the passing of the amateur era of rugby. Doesn’t feel the same anymore.
Nowadays when thinking of people from the past I find myself wondering if they are still alive. I google them. People disappear from your consciousness and only appear when their death is announced. It’s an age thing. People get on with their own lives out of the media glare. Most of us.
It’s already Tuesday. Twenty twenty four is racing by. Don’t want to worry you but trefbash 15 is already booked. 12th December. Theme is Tropical Trefbash. I book it just after the previous trefbash. I like to see how it goes before thinking about the next one.
In the meantime lots to be getting on with. Don’t want to wish twenty twenty four away do we? I’d like to think it will be the most significant year yet. We should approach every year with that attitude.
The heating is on, for the moment. I had a few fifty pound notes going spare so I thought I’d set fire to them. Picture THG and I huddled around a small pile of banknotes holding out hands out to keep warm. Feels like a Banksy painting. We ran out of chair legs ages ago.
Not totes true. I have two magnificent logpiles. Some of the logs might be ready and I plan to test them out this evening. They were from a large branch blown over by storm Eunice the year before last. The one where the planes and trains were cancelled and we were stuck in Schipol for eight hours and caught covid thanks to some filthy disease ridden traveller. Thanks a bunch. Pal.
Fortunately the shed is v warm and is my destination this morning. I have made a fourth pot of tea. The other three were made by THG who is a wonderful gal. No biscuits though. Outside the shed there is some sort of purple leaved palm tree in a pot. It keeps blowing over in the wind. It is bitterly cold out there. Winter is at its deepest.
…
Using my hand axe I’ve chopped up a bit of fence for kindling. Got a v solid bit of oak as a chopping block. Taken a couple of oak logs inside and supplemented them with some of the kiln dried wood we have left from last year. A log fire seems v appropriate tonight. Primordial.
I suspect we never tire of staring into log fires. A latent memory handed down by our ancestors who would no doubt have looked contemptuously at central heating. “Think of the gas bills”.
Presumably they did sit around the fire discussing issues of the day. Whereabouts of sabre toothed tigers. Stay clear of them. The annual salmon run. That kind of stuff. It’s a lot easier to nip to Waitrose for some pre prepared hot smoked salmon, and a bit of salad.
Cmon baby light my fire…