This can happen: you find yourself up on a stool tonging moss from crevices in the aluminium windows, and I’m talking inside the house. It’s in the order of nose-picking: wrong and thrilling at the same time. Fired by that novel experience, I got out the sewing machine to hem the new bed cover. The…

He seized the base of the disintegrated log basket and thrust it into the fire. She urged him to move over so she could also watch the woven cane blacken in the flames, then she ran for the camera. He remonstrated with her as she opened the door and fire roared back from the gust…

Northeasterly rain: the wet, persistent, three-day kind. I’ve strung the washing up under the house, wiped the windows off for the second time, split some firewood, and huddled up to the wood burner; even the fire slouches along in this weather. I wouldn’t mind something to snack on — something reminiscent of warmer days —…