KW-10 What's the time, Mr Wolf?

Winter, of course. Still.

The most exciting news of the week is not that I achieved another step forwards in the “living like a modern human” stakes - that is the mild success of finally getting waste water working in the loft.

Nor is it that I finally, and on time got the Maltisch finished (which is, for complex reasons, potentially a very bittersweet success).

This is a Maltisch from a Malort. The concept was created by Arno Stern. It seems like an interesting concept, and it was an interesting project to create a long thin table which doesn’t fall over!

The most exciting news of the week is not even that March has decided to March again, with temperatures dropping off a cliff once more. We had two days of glorious sunshine. It was still never more than about 4 degrees Celsius in the shade, but on the sunny side of the street, it had a definite feel of 12 or so. Now, once again, I’m writing this in the snow. The last few days have been absolutely bastard cold. I don’t think I even realised it yesterday, when I cycled the 20km round trip that I make every Sunday. When I got back, I think my toes were actually quite nastily close to dropping off.

I was pumping some water out of the cellar. It splashed on this bush in the middle of the afternoon. When I went to turn it off, I found it encrusted in a 10mm thick jacket

No, the most exciting news of the week is that since I moved here, there have been reports of wolves moving ever closer. They were supposed to be about 80, 100km away three years ago, and this week, they have been positively identified in a village about 12 km distant.

I believe the positive identification was “dead sheep”, so no actual sighting, but how exciting is that? I do hope they are coming. I think wolves are absolutely the most majestic of animals, and I have long hoped to see one in the wild.

Jobs for this week include.

• Make a door for the toilet

• Fix the chimney pipe in the loft kitchen so that it’s a little less dangerous

• Finish the next two soft-fruit permanent beds if the ground unfreezes again

• Continue with project “clean the paths”

• Some more pig fence work

• Take photos of birds

And with that, I shall go and get on with it and leave you with the hope that you are all being excellent to each other, and that your worlds are holding their integrity.

Much love, as always,

The Pirate Ben