The smell of smoke drifted across the clearing. It ghost-gathered, hanging like a spectre amid the birches, glowing brightly in the pared-down winter palette of the woods. There was Roy, flapping away at the fire with a biscuit-tin lid, trying to get air to the flames. He tackled most things in life with the same boyish enthusiasm, despite now being in his 60s. Embers flew and alighted on his fleece, adding yet more perforations to the garment that already looked like it had been eaten away by moths. Meg stood on the opposite side, cutting the huge pile of brash into neat chunks, laying each branch carefully on the fire. She was our oldest member but showed no let-up in her fitness either.
‘Butts and tips, tips and butts,’ Roy reminded her as the branches were laid first one way, then the other. Meg didn’t need telling