"Norwegian Wood ".......... A book review

I do admire the Norwegians as my Antarctic exploring neighbour Trevor knows and as I have said before, they are the best at getting to the South Pole, blowing up Nazi power stations and making sensible use of their oil revenues for everyone's benefit. You might add they are tall, good looking and knit nice sweaters.

Now there is another world beating Norwegian activity: chopping, stacking and drying firewood. It's all in a new international, number two best seller, "Norwegian Wood". So I am not alone chopping, cutting and stacking wood as a hobby, there are thousands more romantically inclined woodsmen out there who read about their pastime.

The number two best seller bit must be true, I read it in the Guardian yesterday then immediately ordered a copy that arrived at lunchtime. I have put the fire on, a wood burner of course and have skimmed through it before settling down to read

There's excellent advice on tools, techniques and stacking logs as an art form, the illustrations are

200 year old woodcutter and his logs

brilliant. I will then pass it on to Dormouse who thinks I am slightly crazy doing all this manual stuff but the woodcutters in the illustrations all look happy, healthy and even older than me. This is the ideal Christmas gift for practising or armchair woodsmen with an interest in renewable energy.