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I came on line this morning full of the joys of birds singing, sun shining, washing drying and generally feeling a lot less cold and damp than of late.  Then blow me down the little weather widgetty thing D put onto the internet home page shows possible snow and a drop in temperature by 10 degrees by Wednesday.  Even worse, that information is actually for our nearest decent sized town which is at sea level nearer the coast.  So you can bet us further inland and about 650 metres up are going to be freezing!

Small scattering of snow at Christmas

So I’ve been off on a firewood hunt.  Usually we leave prunings in various piles all over the finca so we have to spend all winter collecting the stuff as its needed.  This summer we got organised and built a firewood storage facility (some concrete near the house and a bit under cover) and stockpiled all the prunings we had plus any other dead wood found near us.  How smug we were in September with our impressive stack of logs, taller than either big D or myself.  Well we thought that should see us through the winter – we even wondered how much would be left for next year.

Wow we were silly!  Three months in and all the firewood has gone.  So off I went on a collection mission.  I’ve found lots of dead almond trees we’d yet to cut down and old piles of prunings from previous years.  Just wish we hadn’t left the good firewood saw at Mrs T’s, as now we’ve got lots of wood near the house ready to burn but too long for the stove – doh!

So fingers crossed the cold snap waits till Wednesday so we have time to get the saw and get sawing as the paraffin heater we have is good for warming the place up but the wood burning stove is better for enjoying a cozy night in.

zibro paraffin heaters

Think I need to dig out the hot water bottles and some fingerless gloves as my hands are frozen typing this – really wish we’d had the internet installed in the warm room rather than the huge, nearly underground summer living room (called the summer living room as its lovely and cool in the summer, i.e. bloomin’ freezing all winter).

It must be going to get cold as the hens have retired to their house and are taking no notice of the pile of cabbage leaves dumped in their compound.  Even more telling is the fact the cat has come home and is curled up on our bed trying to be invisible so I don’t kick him out again.  We don’t see him from one week to the next but he is usually pretty good at forecasting dodgy weather and coming for a visit!  Cheeky!

Well I’m off for a warming cup of tea.  Wrap up well and keep warm amigos!