Q. My husband — currently unemployed — has started ‘sourcing’ logs from our own smallholding. Chopping down perfectly good trees, sawing logs, drying them … to say nothing of trying to get a fire going without proper kindling or firelighters, is now taking him up to three hours per day. I realise that this is displacement activity but I would rather he was doing something using his brain. When I tell him I am going to order seasoned logs from the local sawmills (at £90 per cubic metre) he says it would be emasculating for him if I did this, as he is gaining self-esteem by providing for his family.
— Name and address withheld
A. It might be subtler if, having explained the situation to a sympathetic local landowner, you asked if you might get the sawmill to deliver a seasoned load to a site on his land. The landowner might then approach your husband saying he has more logs than he can possibly use and requesting that he help him out by using as many as he can throughout the winter.
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