After weeks of searching for firewood, I have enough to see me through till the New Year, at least. All too many people in rural Romania are struggling to find firewood this autumn, and those that find it have to pay twice or three times the normal price. It’s a scandal of old-fashioned proportions, with poor forestry management and pathetic governance of illegal logging.

So I’m extremely grateful, in this chilly start to autumn, that my neighbours have come to my rescue and found me a stock of logs for the winter. Tonight I’ve been cosying up to my soba and basking in the gentle warmth of a wood fire.