The nights are fair drawing in (and it's still August!)

Yes - it has felt like autumn morning and evening, and sometimes during the day!, for at least the past week and our central heating which is set to come on at minus 17 has been coming on early morning and sometimes staying on during the morning - the outdoor thermostat is at the back of the house and in shadow until the sun moves round at about 11.00 am. We've also noticed some of the leaves are turning to their autumn colours as well.

In August here, everyone starts thinking about wood supplies for the coming winter months. Most houses in our area have a wood burner, une poêle à bois, possibly as the only source of heat or, like us, in addition to heating with oil - very expensive.   We are on the lorry and tractor route through the village as the road narrows on the other through road and tractors and trailers have been going back and forward loaded with wood for the past few weeks.

A friend of ours had rescued some wood last year from an English couple who had cut down a number of trees, and she offered to bring it over last week.  On our job list was 'sorting out the woodstore'.  This is open fronted, built of breeze blocks with a corrugated roof supported by various old wooden joists, old tree trunks and old broom shanks.  In one corner are all sorts of ancient agricultural and gardening tools imaginable - mostly rusty - , various sticks and stakes in a ancient stout wooden crate which possibly housed sewing machine parts originally.  (The house originally had a hairdresser's, sewing machine shop and tailor's and the original sewing machine and other sewing paraphernalia is still in the attic - beautiful wooden templates for suits, silk threads and hundreds of buttons.)

There is also the stack of wood from last year which has to be moved in rotation nearer the front of the store for easy access during those cold dark evenings.  We have lots of sticks, old rotten wood and smashed up fruit crates for kindling, along with pine cones and the remains of the pine needles from last year's Christmas tree which produce great sparks and scents as well as getting the fire under way.

Two wheelbarrows also live in the woodstore - a modern metal one that we bought here new and an ancient wooden barrow, with useful detachable sides - very sturdy, but it weighs a ton before you even load anything on to it.  Some of the plastic garden chairs are often put in there, along with vintage parasols and parasol stands which weigh a ton and were originally the bases of the 1960s hairdryers from the haridresser's.

So, we cleared everything out of the store, Kay arrived with the wood and that is now all stacked in there - and hopefully will be suitable for our woodburner, as we realised that some woods give off no heat but lots of resin to tar up the chimney!  So, now we need to finalize the order with a local farmer for two stères (think that's about two cubic metres, but possibly more) and await the main wood delivery in September or October when it'll be 'Wagons, ho!' with the two wheelbarrows pressed into service.

© Marie Tyler, 2014.