Stones and water

A quiet day here with the storms all elsewhere. A rainy day morning of mists and low rain, a Lake District day when stones and moss and grasses were all illuminated by rain light. Alone in the house to work I opened the windows and let the damp air in, bright and fresh and with a slow after-the-storm mood. It was wet and windy overnight but we have been spared the heavy rains and driving winds that the rest of the country has had. Or rather the valley is protected from heavy weather by its position, shielded by Welsh hills or Shropshire's Blue Remembered Hills or even the Malvern Hills thirty miles away but visible from the hill behind us. Mick the Flower who lives down the lane once told me about the hills twenty, thirty miles away that protect us from the extreme weather, and it is true that most of the weather comes down the valley from the west, from Wales.

We went out for firewood as stocks are low, over the hills to Aymestrey on the old Roman road connecting Wroxeter with the vanished Roman city at Kenchester. How much longer will we be having fires? And then tonight a series of short power cuts at dusk, so it is advisable to always have candles and wood in. Our wood comes from a sawmill at Mortimer's Cross near Aymestrey, the offcuts from roofbeams, kiln-seasoned oak blocks which burn slowly and leave very little ash. They have a simplicity, these small dry cubes of oak, that makes them very modern, contemporary plinths, uncarved sculptures, with the accidental tannins or staining like miniature landscapes. They are astonishingly beautiful objects, and we use them as bookends or to display small sculptures as well as firewood.