Still have all my fingers....

The temperature outside at the moment is -3C. Charlie Coal moans like the devil each time he returns from a wander about his estate and each morning the residents of the street can be seen scraping the frost off their car windscreens whilst exhaling clouds of breath that puts one in mind of dragons about to launch themselves into the air.

Kepping warm is both a trial and fun to be honest., we all dress ourselves in layers of clothes so that we look like the 'Michelin Man' from the old tyre advertisements!. Woolley though is working hard to generate heat. Both by action & in my attempts to provide heat for the occupants of the homestead.. The wood-burning/multi fuel stove is going full blast on a daily basis. Charlie Coal lies comatose before the stove worshipping the warmth brought to him by

 the god cast iron stove!

BUT: in order to provide fuel for the all consuming stove I have to either buy fossil fuel, buy logs or...recycle wooden pallets. And that dear reader is what the above photo is all about.. I've never been keen to throw things away. One of my philosophy's is,"..,," might come in useful one day...". Thus I have a shed full of junk, old nails, screws, 3/4 empty tins of paint etc etc. So the stove was yet a further opportunity for me to go out & collect/recycle (junk). I, along with my neighbour Jim (the man whos mobile phone got washed down in the shared sewer-see an earlier post) keep our eyes peeled for burnable wooden pallets that we can saw & chop up. C'mon people...its free fuel!!!

 Sawing with a bow saw might be fine manly work, the stuff that wild he men of the Canadian Rockies do stripped naked to the waist whilst drinking neat 'red eye' whiskey, but I'm a flabby city boy from Birmingham whilst Jim is a real ale loving fella from East Belfast. So we're not really made for the blisters, sweat & skin lacerations that sawing & chopping sends our ways.

Sooooo...Woolley brought an electric chain saw!!   Now I'm renown for being clumsy,. I trip up, bump into things (other cars whilst driving for example) & generally am noted for being an accident waiting to happen. Thus, you can imagine the reaction of the family when I announced that it was my intention to buy the chain saw. They grimaced, exhaled loudly & pleaded with me not to do it. To compromise I said that I'd not keep it in our shed, not use it 'unsupervised', in fact, not use it too often even when 'supervised'.

And that, is what the photo is all about. The job done Jim & I felt rightly proud of the 4 wooden pallets we'd sawed up in a fraction of the time it would have taken had we used the bow saws. Damn it, we hardly broke a sweat. But still, there was great effort in sweeping up the sawdust that we had to rest & have a glass of ale post sawing!! And I still have all my fingers!!

So if you have a woodburning stove...recycle...& buy a chainsaw!!