Like I knew you wood

Hi! Did you miss me? I missed you heaps. I know it's been a few days, but to tell you the truth, there hasn't been much to write about these last few days. They were all pretty much the same: I opened lots of dusty boxes, looked and sorted what was inside those boxes, then put those things in other boxes. I started looking for a new gym as I'm already sick of the Zumba classes in Gemert, they are all the same, and every song has pretty much the same steps. I miss my teacher Julia from Oz! I found a gym in Uden (friggin' miles away) that does Body Jam AND Zumba, so I'm going to go for a test lesson there soon. Oh, and I was also quite occupied booking our flight to Copenhagen (yeah!) and finishing my book, which is awesome. Go read Jasper Jones, everyone. It's even available in Dutch! Now I'm reading a classic Dutch young adult novel called Schoolidyllen that I found on my travels through our stuff, which was written in 1900 by a woman who was 18 at the time. It took me a while to get used to the old Dutch language and it's very far removed from the lovely writing of Craig Silvey, but I'm quite into it now.

Today I got more exercise than I have all week by chopping some wood with an axe. Yes, I can chop, I gots da muscles. And as it was a lovely warm (14 C!) day with sun, I really built up a sweat. Stella was painting the kitchen window, Mum was weeding and sorting the garden, a lovely active family day. My sister got here late last night, so it was a breakfast together like old times this morning. With bacon, eggs and croissants. And for lunch we had foie gras to start with, then duck breast, fried potatoes and broccoli. Deeeeelicious! Mum likes to make it special when we're all together, so I'm glad I kind of worked out a bit chopping wood.

We had lots of branches that were cut from the walnut tree two years ago just standing up against the wall in the garden, and I decided that I needed to chop those for the wood heater. Mum buys bags of wood (though the garage is full of the old water damaged wooden floor, chopped up for the heater, but she was convinced that wood 'doesn't burn well') and so I thought if I chopped up all that wood, it would tidy up the garden a bit, as well as provide some more firewood that does burn well. It was really hard work and I am amazed I managed to get through it without axing myself in the foot/face/hand/arm/back/nose/etc. But then again, I am pretty clever/a pretty cleaver. Here's some pictures of my handiwork.

I started the day feeling tired (Mum and I stayed up late waiting for Stella to arrive, we didn't want her to arrive to a cold sleeping house, so we stayed up and had the fire going) and so this morning I didn't feel like doing anything, but once I started chopping, it all turned out well. When I had finished my pile of logs, I decided I would make a fire in our outside pot belly wood heater to get rid of the mess of wood chips I had created. It was one smoky affair! I smell like a smoked herring right now. But in the end I had a good little fire going, in which I burnt a lot of the dead twigs and leaves that were messing up the garden, plus all my wood chips. Once I start a fire I love tending to it. I went all around the garden looking for the right bits of dried junk to keep it going. It was fun. Fire is awesome.

Then, it was time for tea with kersenvlaai (cherry pie). Oooh yeah.

After that, the weather started cooling down (it's going to be -4 overnight) so I decided to transfer the outside fire to the wood heater inside by getting the little shovel, scooping up a hot pile of embers from the outside fire, and placing it inside on top of some newspaper, on top of which I put some logs. Whoooooooosh, it was on! Best way to start a fire, is with fire. Now I am burning a lot of the wood I chopped today, along with the old wooden floor from the garage that in the end, really does burn quite well. Sometimes it's better to show your mother you're right than try to convince her verbally. It's like that sometimes.

I am totally spent right now, really tired and smelly and grubby, so I am soon going to soak in a hot bath. You can probably tell how tired I am from the lack of wit and creativity in this post, but oh well. I'm sorry. My last one was really deep, so I think I'm allowed a superficial 'and then, and then' story today. Soon I once again will be the witty, intelligent, creative blogger you all know and love. But for now, say hi to you Mum for me. x