Two Old Fools and Firewood

I blame Joe, of course.

“This year,” said Joe, “let’s order all our logs in one go. It’ll be cheaper and last us all winter.”

So I agreed. Stupidly.

The lorry arrived in the morning and tipped its entire cargo onto the street outside our house. Joe and I gazed at it in horror, gulped, then set to work.  Luckily, it was a Wednesday and the village was virtually empty so we didn’t inconvenience our neighbours too much. But we suffered. As the sun went down, we were still stacking like robots, log after log after log, and I didn’t believe we would ever clear the log mountain. The wild birds and our chickens went to bed, the street-lights flickered on and we were still stacking.

It took nine back-breaking hours to stack those logs and clear the street, but eventually it was done. For the next few days our bones and joints screamed in protest, and we were so stiff we groaned as we shuffled around doing our daily tasks.

The aches and pains have faded now, but the memory of the log mountain in the street, waiting to be stacked, is forever etched in my brain and memorialised in the photo above. Yes, we are very warm,  and have enough logs for a year, probably more. But would we ever order a whole lorry-load again? No way, Jose!