Today, Lynn and I took advantage of a window in the weather to go for firewood.
Recently, the moon has been full (high tides - good for wood-gathering) and the tides favourable (high water in early afternoon), but the wind has been strong, persistent and in the west, making it impossible to land a boat on our favourite wood-gathering island with any prospect of leaving again. Lynn, fire-master extaordinaire, has been rationing the flow of fuel to the two wood-burners. Last night, when she was on her own on the island, she sawed and chopped the last of our supply of firewood in appalling conditions after dark, and visited each stove three times during the night, at 1am, 4am and 6.30am, to keep a trickle of heat in the cabin - which, as I've said before, has the insulation values of a tent..
Had I been the pioneer I always wanted to be, while my eye would have fallen on Lynn for many, many reasons, one of them would have been her dogged (and cheerful) self-reliance..
