Wallace Stevens was right about having “a mind of winter”. In my last post I wrote about the beauty of autumn, but within that hinted at some of the melancholy of the season. We have enjoyed the soft and colourful parts of autumn, rather like focusing on the feathered fletching of an arrow. Now we need to turn our attention to the arrowhead.
Our first step in preparing for winter was to change the summer tyres on our car for the winter ones. We did not have to reset the clock because we have been living with Eastern European Standard Time in the car throughout the summer (i.e., an hour behind), so now without any effort on my part we are aligned with the real time. I knew it was just a matter of being patient.
I have been busy with my little axe, preparing lots of kindling for the wood-burner. We still have a reasonable supply of large logs and I have not yet had to wield my big boys’ axe. The time for that will come soon and we will also need to order more wood to see us through to spring. Strangely, as I was writing this, a truck pulled up outside loaded with logs. They beeped for attention but we did not respond. There are a lot of rogue operators who sell illegally forested wood. All wood legally sourced is stamped accordingly.
It is not unusual for the electricity supply to be disrupted in bad weather. In fact, it can be disrupted at any time. The standing joke in the village is that it is the fault of storks nesting on the equipment. We therefore have to ensure a good supply of batteries and candles. A back-up power pack for our mobile phones is also useful to have at such times.
Next we turn to sustenance. Although we are not in a mountainous region, there is always the risk of getting cut off from supplies for a few days at a time due to the snow that pays us a relatively brief visit. We try to keep our pantry well stocked with non-perishables.
This is the time of year that people in these parts start to pickle their vegetables. One week the market stalls are stacked high with bags of peppers, the next there are piles of huge cabbages everywhere. We have some pickled peppers, but passed on the cabbages this year – they caught us unawares and we did not have an appropriate recipe to hand. Have you ever been caught unawares by a cabbage? [This is my attempt at audience engagement – it is still work in progress].
Of course, we must not forget the importance of hydration. The image below illustrates the range of drinks we have to store:
This is what I call my hydration scale. As we move from left to right, so we see a decrease in the alcohol content of each drink. There is one error I just noted – the malt beer at the end should be in the middle of the beers. Accuracy is important. Interestingly, the scale of alcoholic strength perfectly matches the importance of each of these drinks – as long as you have plenty of brandy and rakia (the first two bottles), everything else can take care of itself. My kind of pickling.
And on that cheerful note, that just about wraps up my account of winter preparations here in Avren.
Nazdrave!!
Psychologist on the Move 