Cosy

I enjoy each season as it rolls round and that includes winter. Today it started to make its presence felt and outside it's decidedly cool this evening. How lovely it is to be cosy inside, curtains pulled in a snug warm room as the wind and rain continue outside.

In Stokes Valley, I heated the house with a woodburner. This is a deeply satisfying way to warm ones's home. Quite apart from the aesthetics - lets face it, there is nothing more lovely than flames dancing

- there are other joys to the woodburner. There's the fun of listening to others bemoan their crippling electricity bills while yours remain constantly low all year round. There is the deep satisfaction to be gained from the sight of your gloriously elegant stack of firewood.

Stacked firewood not only looks good, it smells good. There is the almost primal satisfaction in knowing you are provisioned for the big freeze to come.

This will be my second winter in Petone. While the house now boasts gorgeous fire surrounds, no flames will dance within. The heating here is gas - ghastly gas. An unappealing appliance that is all about the science of heating, with not a scrap of the art of it. It provides all the heating needed, as long as there isn't a power cut - how silly to have a non-electric fuel source entirely dependent on electricity to deliver its heat.

However, there is something to be said for arriving home, flicking a switch and having a warm room within a couple of minutes - and that's how it will have to be for quite a while to come until I can afford to put in a woodburner.