A year ago today – a nice way to enjoy a fruit coctail, but the ice wasn't from the freezer...
I can't remember the last time we let the second stove go out the day before Christmas Eve, and didn't bother relighting it until after Boxing Day. Yesterday, I was chopping wood in my shirt sleeves. At first light this morning, as I rowed out to fetch the dinghy, I looked back at the cabin, and a pale salmon sky above Eagle Hill, and even the flue from the living room stove was bereft of smoke. We've been positively basking in the unseasonal warmth, and touching wood.
Apparently we are about to pay for it, because in the next few days Northern Ireland is to be visited by severe – and lasting – westerly gales; but whatever January and February have in store, the winter has been nicely shortened.
Thanks be to . . . Poseidon.