29.10.2023 The trials and tribulations of buying firewood logs!

 ~o~

 Sunday 29th 47F/8C. Very dark again even at 8am. A wet and windy morning is promised. Up at 7am after three tours to the bathroom in the night. Four times since I got up an hour ago! I drank my last tin of beer with dinner last night. Case proved I think. No more beer! No coffee in the evening. A small glass of milk seems to be the answer to my need. To drink something after dinner. It may even help me to sleep.

 61F/16C in the living room. It was only 65F/18C at bedtime after I let the stove go out. Bathroom and kitchen hovering just above 55F/13C thanks to the electric radiators. I am dressed warmly to avoid lighting the stove prematurely and using up more firewood unnecessarily.

 Purchase of more firewood is a choice between very doubtful morality at a large timber yard. Going back over two decades. Or oversized mixed logs at a furniture factory. The former pretends to sell dry firewood but chooses not to. Overt racism? 

 The latter will require lots of my splitting with a heavy maul. Plus several stages of manhandling from one place to another at home. I have to split at the back of the house to avoid damaging windows or the greenhouse. Logs fly everywhere while splitting! The last time I asked for beech logs but was given a very mixed load including lots of birch. 

 Both suppliers use a large front bucket loader and scrape the ground. Completely unnecessarily, as they load my trailer. Resulting in large quantities of wet bark, dust and soil being mixed in with the logs. It's not so much that I resent the trash displacing real firewood. For the considerable sum of money I hand over. 1000kr = £120. The price rose when gas prices went high and people started buying firewood instead. The price never came back down again when gas prices collapsed. The ridiculous excess of dust and bark is a real nuisance when handling the logs. The bottom of the trailer is always several inches deep in completely unusable, rubbish, wood waste.

 I am always polite and friendly with the staff. So they have no reason to treat me any differently than any Dane. Yet from the very first visit to the timber yard the foreman has acted strangely. A younger member of staff was helping us load our trailer manually from the huge stack. Instead of using one of the many large bucket loaders. One scoop and the trailer is full to overflowing. The foreman told him off and sent him to work elsewhere. Leaving us to continue loading the trailer by hand. A splinter prone and time consuming pastime.

 8.50. Still depressingly dark. I am going for a walk to ease my aching back.

 9.30 Returned from my walk. My lower back pain was reluctant to ease. The Gore-Tex jacket quickly darkened all over in the wind driven rain. The roads were plastered with fallen leaves and countless windfall apples. The wind was roaring so loudly in the roadside trees. That I kept looking for the vehicles supposedly racing towards me from behind. The pond on the back field continues to grow. More bright puddles are scattered widely. Still nothing visible near my boundary.

 I checked my fleece jacket carefully after I came home. I had worn it under the Gore-Tex jacket as a test. Only one slightly damp forearm suggests a leak or rainwater soaking through the membrane. I felt very comfortable throughout. Except for my unprotected and now damp fleece trousers.

 My friend is visiting later this morning. Luckily the clocks have gone back. So I have an extra hour for spring cleaning. [Like a Dervish!] 

 10.30 52F/11C. Overcast and blowing. It has rained on an off all morning. I have the living room up to 67F/19C! Whew! 😅

 13.10 69F/21C! My friend has left after an enjoyable natter. Time for lunch. A few glimpses of sunshine. It has stopped raining at last.   

 Dinner was mackerel on toast with fresh, cherry tomatoes.

~o~