Well, here we are in proper winter weather. All that cruddy warm nonsense of last week has departed, and we have decent frost out there. Which would be all very well were it not for the fact that it has slightly buggered a bit of our lime rendering. (Lime doesn’t like frost, you see – when hard frost comes along before lime has had chance to go off properly, the frost sort of insinuates itself in between the particules and generally buggers about with them, leaving you with a sort of powdery finish which is not at all desirable in something normally, er, rock solid.) (But then I suppose attempting to render one’s house in the middle of the coldest time of the year isn’t perhaps the most sensible thing to do, now is it? Though quite typical, come to think of it) (Enough with the parentheses already.)

So. We’ve had the stove lit for over a week, continuously burning, and in that time it has cooked several stews, a couple of soups and two large Christmas puddings, to say nothing of innumerable pots of tea and whatnot. (Quercus bought me the best tea cosy as one of my Chrimbly presents – it is a knitted sheep [for some reason, I typed that initially as 'knittig'] with curly wool and the most engaging sticky-uppy ears – if you fancy the sound of that, get yourself along to a Ringtons sharpish, or have a gander at the Knitter Critter website for more on the rather pleasing ethical side of said excellent tea cosy.) It is most smug-making, getting by-products from the stove, not least because the wood we burn came to us free. Well, the only price was trudging through a variety of squishous Devon fields to retrieve it, put it that way, from its owners, who didn’t want it and were delighted when we took it away, coupled with the cost of fuel for the chainsaw and a great deal of time spent chopping, stacking and storing it once back at the witchery (and let us not speak of our ongoing woe regarding wood storage; we are hoping to put in a listed building consent application soon, which would sort out our woes, but clearly if I speak of this in too much detail, the god of planning will hear, and take vengeance in some hideous and unthought-of – but probably involving drains – manner).

Anyway, I haven’t really got much to say at the moment, partly because I am still slightly shell-shocked at having finished my PhD (the powers that be at the university tell me that my doctorate will be processed on January 7), and partly because, to be honest, life is good at the moment. Which means little to moan about. And I have always found that ranting brings forth the verbose in me, while life-is-goodness = sitting and quietly gloating. You know how it is. That is not to say that I won’t find things to say, of course – I mean, here I am, quietly saying ‘oooh – look at all that chocolate I’ve been given for Chrimbly’, yet still I manage to ramble for, er, 516 words, according to the natty little (why didn’t I type my thesis in WordPress?) widget-whatsit on the right of the screen. So not hiaiting, but do forgive me if I’m unbearably smug at the moment. Oh, and how about a questions and answers session? i.e. leave me questions in my comments thingy and I’ll answer them. Ask me anything. No, really – go on. Within reason. Or not. Or something.