Opening Lines: Hoarding firewood salvaged from a skip is as survivalist as I get

It leans outside against the wall of the back yard: the product of instinct, opportunism and about an hour’s proper physical labour.

It’s timber for the fire that I scavenged. Now, I wasn’t out in the forest dressed in furs, armed with a mattock, wolves stalking me while in the dark groves, sinister pagan idols smiled at me grotesquely. I just happened to be cycling,  passed a neighbour’s house, saw they were renovating, knocked at the door and asked if I could take their wood. Still, there’s something satisfyingly primal and instinctive about getting fuel from the land.

And there is a sense of history in handling the discarded timbers from an old house. What stories are wrapped up in these structural elements. Who walked across these joists on their way to comfort a sleeping child when they woke from a nightmare? Who leant against this door-frame as they delivered some troubling news to the person in the room? Who cares? I’m creating some new memories of cosy fires as the wood gets consumed in the ever-voracious stove.