We’ve been working so hard today, culminating in the need to burn a huge pile of ‘stuff’. So, I hauled it up the hill to DM who was firemeister, setting the fire and feeding it. The wind whipped up the flames and we kept on piling more and more fuel onto them.

Feeding the fire.

We deeply regretted not being able to harness the heat for other good purposes and in a world where I’d thought before starting the job, we’d have had a load of jacket potatoes wrapped in foil, cooking in the embers but I didn't think it through. It was not to be because firstly I don’t think either of us realised how hot the fire would be from the stuff we needed to burn (brambles and nettles mostly) and secondly because we just didn’t think of using the energy, simply of ridding ourselves of a problem of a huge amount of dead brush.

Despite our tiredness, I think there is an analogy to our situation in as much as this looks dead but the heat and fire is certainly still there – a little fanning of this and the flames will shoot up again, hot and eager……

Last year, I was having a huge rant about credit card companies!