I nearly stayed home today, with the thermometer on -1 Celsius and a chilly wind off a frozen continent for the windchill factor, but I wrapped up warm with 2 fleeces and a bodywarmer under my jacket, and turned up at the hut. No other volunteers arrived, so Netty and I were the team. She said let’s make a fire: she had come equipped with potatoes to roast in case everybody felt like making a celebration out of it. We left them in the hut. I had a biscuit and a cup of tea and we bravely stepped outside.

I cut up a large Christmas tree with loppers: it was clearly an excellent specimen, as it still had all its leaves a month after Christmas, and smelt pleasantly resiny. It caught fire splendidly, and soon we had a fine blaze. It ate up quantities of brambles. The Holm Oaks that I’d cut also burnt well, if anything even better than the conifer; it seems to contain a lot of resin too.

I didn’t think about being cold at all while I worked, so the fire must indeed have been hot. I went home reeking of smoke.