I feel like I'm breaking up the furniture and burning chairs and tables. But no - it's kindling from the farm shop. The coal was just taking too long. Not hot enough.
I know, I know, it's not like I'm in Siberia, but the heating in this house is somewhat imperfect. There's one radiator in the main downstairs room and the floors are stone.
The cats have the best of it as their beds are above the radiator. Which, inconveniently, is opposite the front door under which a breeze blows.
The other night I came down to find the dog shivering. I led him from the bed by the cooling radiator onto the sofa where the breeze can't go. I thought, maybe he should wear his ill-fitting and hardly effective coat at night?
The cats lie on me. I am their radiator. The occasional night sweats boost their spirits no end. I wake up damp and enclosed in a cat cocoon.
In work, as people are advised to work from home, the heating is low for efficiency and the dearth of warm bodies means that sitting at a desk is worse than working in a wood. Far worse. I had to curl myself into a foetal pose for ten minutes to warm my midriff and resume bodily functioning.
So when I got home, I thought, a fire, and added to my carbon footprint with coal and far too much kindling.
Of course, that these pieces of wood are the bodies of sentient trees makes the whole thing even worse.
The cats don't care. Tree, chicken, lamb, human - all exist with one fine purpose - to serve the feline needs.
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