Hi Islandgirl I actually gave in and lit the rayburn yesterday. This house gets very damp very quickly and we had torrential rain. Thats my excuse anyway. Wonderful the difference it makes, but the dust it creates is a real pain.

Last winter every dog walk became a firewood hunting expedition. Trouble was I had to go further and further afield to find anything. I burnt a few fir cones, stuffed toilet roll tubes with newspaper, even tried burning books! Funny, they didn't burn very well in my open fire and I always felt a little guilty about it.

My Grampy said wood makes you warm three times. When you carry it home, when you saw it up and when you burn it. He collected wood every day and had the most magnificent wood pile.

Other ways to keep warm? Wearing fingerless mitts while using the computer, wrapping myself in a blanket, never wearing less than two pairs of socks and big fluffy boot style slippers, hot water bottles, hot drinks and jigging up and down a lot!

Oh and eucolyptus leaves have lots of oil and flare up well, also sprigs of dried fir.

islandgirl said:

Didn't know about eucalyptus leaves - thankyou- sounds odd to say but I quite envy you,  already having lit your rayburn, as you can probably tell  I'm not a lover of hot weather!

 

A word of warning about the eucalyptus leaves, they seem to do nothing then suddenly flare up so go careful.

I've let the rayburn go out, the weather dried up and its warmer again. I do live in sunny Cornwall after all, palm trees in the garden and everything. I'm just unfortunate that this house is an icebox. In summer I put a jumper on indoors and take it off to go out.

Danast, I envy you your willing gardener who'll cut logs. Someone gave me several small tree trunks last winter with no thought as to how I was going to cut them up.