Overnight Stop
We arrived at the house a little before dawn. The house had retained some heat from the previous afternoon. Even without a fire in the grate, it was warmer inside than out – well, less bitterly cold anyway. We searched all around the house, inside and out, for anything to burn. There wasn’t much, and most of what there was was too damp. It wouldn’t dry out, even inside the house beside whatever fire we could make, in time to be any use to us.
In particular, we couldn’t find anything at all that would burn easily enough to get a fire started.
We just had to huddle together to try to keep warm. Sleep was out of the question.
But sleep we did. When I woke, the sun was streaming in through the glassless window, and my feet, in a patch of sunshine, actually felt warm. Jackie was snoring, but Chris was awake. She’d managed to get a fire going somehow, and was cooking the rabbit we’d snared the previous day. She’d found some potatoes growing in a patch not far from the house as well.
‘There’s a spring at the foot of the cliff over there. Looks like good water. I’ve washed and had a drink. I can’t find anything to boil any water in though, so there’s going to be no tea I’m afraid.’
I thought that was just a joke – we’d not had any tea for a week. But she’d found a packet of tea in a cupboard.