One tree stack

I have come to the end of my Sisyphean labour with the Holm Oak. First we carted it down the hill to the shed for splitting and stacking. Later and in the fullness of time it will need carted to the top again in order to burn it.

This stack is from the one Holm Oak we had taken down. I reckon there is between 8 and 10 cubic metres of split wood.

Outside Storm Barney is working itself up to a pitch - force 9/10 in the Strait tonight and peaking at 60mph gusts at midnight.

I have finished reading Michel Houellebecq's 'Submission' - a French novel that gained huge notoriety in France. I thought it was very interesting in a bleak kind of way. I won't try to explain it but it is pretty powerful stuff. The best review (ie the one that I can agree with most)  is here in The Guardian. Reading the book is a 'shifty, discomfiting' experience.