Warm hearts and hearths for Christmas

Most people don’t want the bother of a real fire. 

It’s far easier and less time consuming to flick a switch than lug coal buckets, saw wood and clean up ash. Sometimes I feel I don’t want the bother of it either. But recently I’ve felt blessed with the presence of a real fire in the cottage. Most particularly since the boiler broke down again.

The word ‘cottage’ may sound romantic. But along with them come the quirks of their time; the insulation is none existent, the tiled floors feel arctic on bare feet and the wicked Easterly will inevitably find a way in. Which all serves to chill the crockery, clothes, furnishings and fingers to the temperature of the sausages straight out the freezer. The real give-away is the fact that they don’t defrost, even over a day!

But soon as the fire’s lit, all that seems bearable. We stack it up. Have dinner on knee in front of it. Let its soothing chatter calm concerns and melt muscles and bones braced against the cold.

Looking after it also keeps me active, so contributes to raising my temperature and my strength and fitness as well.

It’s ironic isn’t it, that all our labour saving devices, despite being so convenient, are not so good for our health. We’ve become so sedentary that we have to schedule in times to keep fit when the process of living no longer does so.

Watching the fire is as compulsive as staring at a screen but is better for my mental fitness, I reckon. It’s heart warming as well as hearth warming. Perhaps it’s because there’s something in us that draws us towards these natural elements, like the sun, something ancient in our genes that will never be over taken by man-made things. I don’t turn to stare at a radiator for peace of mind!

In new builds and work spaces maybe we need to take into account that we are natural beings ourselves. And as such consider that we do need a connection to other natural elements, like light which I talked about last time, to keep our hearts and heads as warm, healthy and fit as our bodies and muscles used to be when we were tending fires.

Wishing you warm hearts and hearths this season however you find them.