The English Cottage, The Chainsaw and Work That Matters
Before we made the move up to Scotland, I lived in a place called “the Cottage” in rural Hampshire, at the edge of a village.
It had a very Midsomer Murders vibe, nestled between a railway line, a village hall, allotments, and a village that, although in the countryside, was certainly not cut off from it. Many people still commuted into larger towns for work.
We spent a good number of years there, along with a few tough winters. It was both isolated and connected at the same time.
During the summers, the garden (massive) was a haven for wildlife. Rabbits, Birds, Hedgehogs, Pheasants and probably more rats and mice that we would want to know about, all lived in the garden.
On those warm south-of-England days, the light would be bright, and as it turned to dusk, the trees and hedges took on a wonderful glow as the light passed through them.
On those barmy days, you would hear people coming and going from the allotments, runners, cyclists, and horses moving along the lane. Just before last light, bats would dart across the sky.
When night finally fell, you’d hear the gentle rumble of goods trains at midnight, 2am, and then the first commuter trains at 5am, bringing a reassuring connection to the rest of the world. The sound of wheels on rails drifted up from the railway line at the bottom of the garden.
Occasionally, the night air would be pierced by the sound of foxes, which, if you’ve ever heard them, sound like something out of a Wes Craven horror film. More than once, they woke me with a fright.
Looking back, it was idyllic, if fox screams are excluded.
The Chainsaw
As idyllic as it was, the lifestyle came with its quirks. One of them was the lack of central heating. There were some eclectic storage heaters, but the main way the house was kept warm was with a wood and coal fireplace.
A fireplace that also had the habit of Asian hornets occasionally popping down the chimney, which was a shock, but that’s another story entirely.
By late summer and into autumn, it was time to start chopping wood. We were fortunate to have a stockpile of very large logs on the property, which we could cut down into firewood and kindling. So the idea, not mine, of getting a chainsaw was born, and off to a retail park we went.
Those late summer and autumn days would be filled with chopping and cutting wood, building up a stockpile to heat the home, alongside buying coal and other firelogs as needed.
There is something deeply satisfying about holding a chainsaw and cutting through wood, creating a pile of logs that will quite literally keep you warm. You could almost feel that future warmth as you worked.
There was also something in the mastery of using a powerful tool, one that, if mishandled, could easily take your hand off and leave you fit only to play Captain Hook in a J.M. Barrie play.
But more than that, there was the tangibility of the work. It mattered. It made your own life better that evening, and that winter.
Winter and the Reward
As winter came along, sitting in front of the fire at night, reading or playing Xbox, was lovely. During the Beast from the East, it was a godsend.
The crackle of the fire, the low red glow as the night wore on, this was the reward for all that work.
Nostalgia, the Chainsaw, and Friction
It is easy to pretend, in hindsight, that you were living some sort of Henry David Thoreau-style life. The reality was less romantic. At the time, I was also running a recruitment business from home and co-working spaces, playing Xbox, and popping into the nearest town for cinema nights.
Eventually, we left the cottage, and it was bittersweet. Moving up to Scotland was exciting, but there was something about living there. A quality and charm that can’t quite be repeated.
The connection between physical effort and warmth created something invigorating, something that now feels deeply nostalgic.
It is easy to be swept up in nostalgia. Entire political movements seem to trade on it.
But what the chainsaw really represented was something else: friction that created an outcome.
And the outcome mattered. A warm home in winter always does.
I miss what the chainsaw represented, not the chainsaw itself.
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