Winter is back, time for the yearly blog.

Not sure why. I am an infrequent blogger, but looking back over previous posts, I always feel the need to put pen to paper, or at least fingers on keyboard at this time of year. Perhaps because life slows a little and while the to do list still seems to have plenty of to dos to be done, they all seem a little less urgent than during the hectic summer. Perhaps it's just a good time to pause for reflection while changing gear for the colder months.

We took delivery of a consignment of winter fuel the other week. It feels comforting to live in a place where the change of season requires a little planning. For most it just requires nudging the central heating dial up a notch or two. Live in a house with no carpets or central heating, with gaps under the door that admit draughts you could sail a boat with. Couple that with the rapid contrast between sweltering September, temperate October, and positively frigid November (on a bad day). The change of the weather is such a rapid transformation between extremes that 'Winterising' your lifestyle takes on the urgency of a submarine at battlestations.

Our village becomes alive with autumn bonfires disposing of the summer overgrowth in fires prohibited by law, and common sense in the arid summer, the buzz of chainsaws fills the air as peole stockpile winter fuel. Those like me who don't have the time, or cohones to go raiding the woods for windfalls, shop around. Conversations at the bar turn to the relative merits of almond versus pine, olive versus oak. Deals are cut with local wood merchnts. Our own particular choice was part common sense, part romanticism. The clatter of horse shoes against tarmmac distracts me from my work at the office in our home, our promised wood delivery, arranged three weeks previously has arrived, bang on time. Not bad for Spain, not bad for Andratx, and very comendable for a man without a watch driving a cart pulled by a mule. Pep, a swarthy, but friendly guy, unmistakeably ethnically Mallorquin, held out the halter from the horses bridle, wordlessly enquiring where he might hitch up. We have two upturned hooks eithr side of the front door of our hundredish year old village house. I have always wondered what they were for, and it became obvuious in an instant. I can't explain why, but it pleased me immensly to hitch up a horse to the hook for the first time in god knows how long. We will see him a few times before spring I have no doubt.

Cut to the quick. Pungent almond logs crackling on the fire, oxtail stewing gloopily on the stove, iced rosado substituted for spicy tinto, and vague plans to buy jumper 2010, last winter's model saw a little to much action to make it through another.

The decision to relocate to Mallorca is sweetened by the thought of endless summer days and twenty four hour warmth, but the longer you stay here the more you learn that the winter really takes some beating. I wouldn't be averse to a little underfloor heating though.