There is nothing nicer on a winters afternoon that is as grey as a dishcloth, than to light a fire, and get all warm and snug, in a comfy chair with a warm cat on you lap; I’ve had to settle for the twenty first century equivalent of a cat on my lap, a lap top PC (our real cats are asleep on top of the boiler) I’ve plugged the ‘cats tail’ in to the mains and its eyes lit up a treat, the lapcatlaptop complete with built in mouse has after a bit of meowing settled into a contented purr.
I am content, well ’till I have to go out and pick my mums pension for her.
Let me tell you about our fire, in the ‘lounge’ or ‘front room’ its an open fire, we use logs and or coal for fuel, it is what’s called a hob grate, it has to be said that it probably isn’t original to the house, its a bit to posh for a farm house, to much fine detail in the casting, legend has it (handed down to us from the farming family, who lived here for generations, up until the 1970’s) that the fire place came from the ‘big house’ up the lane, that it was bought in the 1960’s when such things were being ripped out of buildings, as old fashioned; it is a genetic predisposition of farming families that they have an eye for a bargain, that they will ’skin a flea for it’s hide’ no doubt they got this for a song, I am glad they did; farm house rooms like ours tend to be small, the fireplace was most probably a bedroom fire place in the grander rooms of the big house
This post is interrupted by a violent squall of hail so heavy that it has set the car alarm off and there is hail coming down the chimney and spitting and fizzing in the fire, it will be a miracle if the electricity doesn’t go off, maybe the pension can wait till tomorrow
The legend also goes that one Sunday morning after a cold and wet ’shoot’ (one my dad was probably involved in, he was a close friend of the farmer, they would have been looking to catch rabbits and pheasants.) That they came home and set their remaining, damp shotgun cartridges to dry on the hob at the side of the open fire, they toppled in the fire and went off with a bit of a bang, there are plenty of pot marks and blemishes in the plaster of this room to make this a true story, but you never know!
Time to put another log on the fire
