With near-perfect timing we lit the new woodburning stove for the first time as the snow fell outside. On any other frosty night we’d be lucky to get the house above 15C. But tonight we hit the dizzy heights of 19.5C in the new living room – and I’d turned all the radiators off.

Joy and happiness, joy and happiness. Especially since the wood came from our own little bit of woodland and I chopped it into logs myself this afternoon. It’s lovely to enjoy a complete sense of entitlement to comfort, instead of the familiar disturbing sense that someone else somewhere will pay for my self-indulgence.

oi

We’ve had open log fires before, but this little baby is in another league. Even the twin-skinned chimney is too hot to touch and it’s only a little 5Kw thing. It’s pretty though, charcoal grey and shiny with just enough detail, but not too fussy. As you can tell, I’m just a little bit smitten. We’ll build a surround for it one day, when/if we get round to it.

February 2, 2009