We’ve had visitors up from that London for the weekend – hoping to get away from the nation’s temporary jubilee insanity, while enjoying such particular rural delights as a non-functioning Rayburn (long story), wood-burning stoves (sadly still necessary), peace and quiet, and hot and cold running views. At 12 and 14 their sons were mostly plugged into various screens and headphones but gamely, if reluctantly, joined in with most of what the adults considered might be fun for them. Long walks, epic bike rides (including the reservoir loop – 12.5 hilly miles – on a Brompton: chapeau), mountain biking, checking the level of the ford, making friends with local ponies, farmers’ markets, aviation museums and landscape art were all, on the whole ‘OK’ but not really as good as whatever it was they were doing on their iPods. But there was one activity which had the youngest leaping off the sofa at the merest mention of it at any hour of the day or night. It turns out that hitting lumps of wood with a real axe – a real axe that has been freshly sharpened, to boot – is even better than Minecraft. And that is praise indeed, apparently.
We’ll be inviting them up in the depths of winter next time, I think
I’m quite handy with an axe. have my dad’s hatchet here too. my great-uncle showed me how to split wood one summer when i was a teenager too. great exercise and satisfying!
I think in his head he was killing things, but hey, it’s all exercise (and gets our wood chopped!)
Echoes of the French revolution? I would, seeing the Jubilee fever. And I’m not even British.
ah, it didn’t really make it up here in Scotland. Looks like down south they had another collective bout of insanity. It’ll wear off
This takes me back, I always wanted to chop the wood for making the fire when I was young.
John
We never had a wood fire but I loved lighting them
For some reason people (especially townies who don’t have to do it in order to heat their houses) love to chop wood. I remember being on a Wild Woman weekend in Wales with about 20 women and there was a fight everyday over who got to chop the wood for the fire.
The novelty does tend to wear off over a winter. I’m intrigued by ‘wild woman’ weekends …
Wild Woman Summer Solstice weekend – a large group of women got together near Lake Padarn to sing and dance around a camp fire, dress up and wear face paint and glitter, skinny dip in the lake, eat, talk and laugh together, celebrate the summer, and feel a bit wild.
The chance touse dangerous stuff and then burn things: sounds a good use of an afternoon to me.
It’s all fun and games until somebody loses a foot