From the cupboard comes the extra blanket dear reader, comes the jumpers and beanies - and the cold is coming, the cold is coming…
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And for me it is a beautiful thing - the slowing of things, the cloud streaked sky, the wind south-west and fell, the silver morning.
I’ll light the fire this week dear reader, I’ll gather the kindling from beneath yonder gums, find the fallen sticks, the shaken-free portions; and they’ll serve to start a fire for my shelter.
And I smelt the first belated winter smoke last weekend, saw it go curling up into the night sky, imagined the crackle there by the hearth, the warm glow on faces ...
And I could care less about the inefficiency of an open-fire, about their associated evils and the time it takes to prepare. In them I find a comfort that speaks directly to my ancient past, to my deeply human instinct for light and warmth, to something that can assuage the lonely darkness of a winter’s night, that can diminish mind-boggling immensity of the universe.
There, gathered together before fires, our faces glow warm orange, the fears dissipate, the sound of the banshee winds at the window can hurt us not - the fire holds back the great, awful, freezing endlessness...
And I remember our coal fire when I was a kid in Maitland, remember taking baths in a metal tub in front of it; and mum would crack a piece of coal open with the poker; heat and light surging from the ancient rock.
And there we would stay, all together in that room, a blanket up at the door to halt the inevitable draughts, hot tea and jam sandwiches and that beautiful warm fire crackling beside us.
I can still see mum swing the axe, splitting the wood, preparing for the night, still see her collect the coal from beside the rail-lines down the end of Victoria Street, still feel how lovely it was to do such a thing with a woman such as her...
![A SPECIAL COMFORT: sSitting around a winter fire with the family, one of life's real joys. A SPECIAL COMFORT: sSitting around a winter fire with the family, one of life's real joys.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/Q9r3V9AUcqpAGD3DNsaA9W/18b5651d-b3c9-4a31-9656-42c5db9860fc.jpg/r0_84_2716_1575_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
And so, like many of you, I’ll light the fire this week dear reader. And we’ll animate the dark, we’ll hold it all at bay - and extinguish the night with one of humanity’s most precious gifts, a winter fire.
We’ll teach the kids the zen art of the construction and preparation, the lighting: the pyramid approach, with papers first and twigs, then the larger sticks of camphor laurel and gum, until gradually, finally - she blazes, she roars, hungry for more - the room lit bright by her force.
Around her then we’ll sit: we’ll talk and sip our drinks, we’ll yarn and drift under a Maitland winter sky, we’ll send the moon down the night, we’ll watch the footy and Le tour, we’ll eat our soups, we’ll read our tomes, we’ll think forward and back - and we’ll know it’s winter again on the floodplain.
And so it goes. Goodnight.