Chestnuts roasting by an open fire …

Chestnuts roasting by an open fire… 

Sorry for the seasonal opening. It’s a bit early for that kind of thing, isn’t it? Nonetheless, it is an enduring yearning, isn’t it? The homeliness of your home, how welcoming it is, is often measured by your fireplace, your hearth. That’s why the writers of seasonal songs often allude to the fireplace.

And this connection between hearth and home has ever been so. Anthropologists looking at the earliest habitations of mankind will always take the presence of fire – or in its most primitive form, a fireplace – as evidence of settlement. Mankind has clearly valued the fire as a friend and ally since the earliest times. These times themselves reach further back. The discovery of the remains of what are being called ‘human-controlled fires’ in South Africa recently dating from a million years ago have added 200,000 years to the timeline of mankind’s use of flame for comfort and, some argue, cookery.

http://genius.com/3122973/Nas-new-world/When-we-made-fire-by-two-sticks-rubbin-together

Clearly our dependency on the ability to control fire has shaped the way we have gone about designing our homes. Even if we flash-forward through the millennia to relatively recent times, we still find that our Stone Age ancestors had the fireplace firmly at the heart of the home. Later Neolithic houses have been unearthed which show that the fireplace was a stone box, designed to contain the fire. It was the Romans, of course, that applied some thought to the clever use of fire and the distribution of heat with their fancy hypocausts delivering hot air up through the floor.

But generally speaking, the open hearth was the main way of heating dwellings of any size for centuries. The smoke would go up and out through the roof (if you were lucky) or, from around the 12^th century and if you were a rich show-off, you might even have had a chimney.

Ah chimneys. They soon turned from being symbols of affluence to symbols of industry. How chimney sweeps came to be known as lucky is a bit of a mystery. Mostsources point back to a story about King George and a horse. And where would Mary Poppins have been without her friend Bert the chimney sweep (even if his mockney accent was a bit unusual!) For the rich, of which Mary’s employers certainly were, the fireplace could be a lavish bit of one-upmanship. Fireplaces themselves became ornamental and desirable. Architect Robert Adam made his name designing the great fireplaces of Georgian Britain. An Adam fireplace was a very desirable showpiece in the well-to-do home of the 18^th century.

http://the-octopus-garden.blogspot.co.uk/2010_08_01_archive.html

These days, you don’t have to engage a great architect to have a feature fireplace. A Bio Fire will bring all the homeliness you need and there are lots of traditional and modern designs you can choose from to suit your home décor. Best of all, you don’t even need a chimney. Sorry Bert! Whether or not you choose to wear the usual seasonal knitwear as you warm yourself and enjoy the flicker of a real flame is entirely up to you ;-)

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Ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties …

Ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties …

http://mcgore.com/interesting-decoration-halloween-design-ideas/black-bats-wall-decoration-with-shaw-laminate-wood-flooring-and-vintage-gel-fireplace-in-modern-living-room-design/

In Britain, we’re somewhere between the full-on Trick or Treat fest that our North American cousins enjoy and the slightly darker European traditions linked to paganism and witchcraft when it comes to marking Hallowe’en. In its purest Christian sense, it’s All Hallows Eve, the night before All Saints Day on 1 November. It is also All Souls Day on 2 November, so for Christian folk at least, it’s a time when the departed are very much to the fore.

Of course, this ‘celebration’ of death has acquired a new and spooky vocabulary in modern times. We have a lot more monsters to choose from if we’re dressing up for a Hallowe’en party. Because whatever its roots as a festival, Hallowe’en is very much about celebration.There is a change in the air, the clocks have gone back and summer (if we had one at all) has departed. Inevitably, Christmas is already on the horizon. There is no escaping it! It is also usually half term, so the kids are extra excited about having some time off. All in all, Hallowe’en is the start of the last quarter of the year and gateway to a season full of excitement, ritual and wonder.

http://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/844773/great-reasons-to-go-apartment-building-trick-or-treating

For all its focus on the darker things, Hallowe’en is a homely celebration. It’s about parties and welcoming visitors to your home, even if it’s just the local kids trick or treating at the door. At this point, I’m bound to say that today’s trick or treaters don’t have much in the way of tricks. When I was a boy … well, let’s just say that most of the fun was to be had the following morning when the grumpier souls in our street, the ones who opted for ‘trick’, found their cars quickly spluttered to a halt. It’samazing how effective a potato firmly wedged in the exhaust pipe could be. Don’t do it, kids!

http://uk.pinterest.com/pin/284078688970837239/

Whatever the excuse – and Halloween is a great one – these colder, longer nights are a great reason to curl up on the sofa with a good book (or a spooky film) and be glad that you’re inside and nice and warm. One of the homeliest of the Hallowe’en traditions is the jack o’lantern, usually carved from a pumpkin or, if you’re a hardcore traditionalist, a turnip. It’s amazing how relaxing a flickering candle inside a hollowed-out vegetable can be. Nothing’s wasted either. You can make soup from the flesh and save the seeds to plant for your own seasonal crop next year.

Of course, you can enjoy the relaxing warmth of a real flame all year long. It’s just extra nice at this time of year anda Bio Fire is an excellent way to do it – either as a full fireplace or a table ornament. They’re clean and efficient, stylish and a real asset to any home and if you want to add a whiff of seasonal ambience to your living space, there are lots of scents you can use with your fire for that extra seasonal touch!

http://dferraro.me/2013/02/25/assignment-2-book-cover-in-progress/book-cover-goodie2/

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