Fire's on again, with the fireguard required to contain all the snap, crackle and pop's, from some old fenceposts. Downside is that it makes the (less) open fire even more inefficient... says he with his engineer's hat on. Would invest in a stove, if I used it more. Minus five (C) outside, and cold inside.

After seeing a Blip of a Bill Bryson book, I picked up and read the last hundred and fifty pages of his, Notes from a Big Country. Had raced through the earlier pages in a single sitting months ago, and seeing that Blip prompted me to finish it off before the end of the year. Nice to do that by the fire this evening. Back to the Oxfam shop for the book. There's a great pile of secondhand novels to tackle someday, mostly from authors I'm unfamiliar with..