As usual, I play catch-up with the week's postings. Thanks for your quotes which remind me that there is Christmas and not just a holiday.

Thank you Flower, I have a very strange little cottage. It is built into a hill so from the front it looks tiny. To get into my garden one must either descend the outside steps or travel through the house to the basement and out the back door. The bottom of the house is latish 1700's with thick walls and a fireplace but the top was placed there in 1829(some say it was once the public loo) so my garden is in the back and I look down into it from my kitchen window. My neighbour is a churchyard and we love it very much even though we have a million things to do with it stll, Martha

Happy New Year!!

that firebox is a Schrader and I bought it from a friend, about 20 years ago..I had another friend put it in and seal it..it's only a metal sheet in the back and sides, so it keeps the fire more contained but wasn't anything that was either already here or even necessary. I don't use it all that much and if the power goes out, with a proper screen, there's plenty enough heat from it...and then there are the generators...plural! lol he works up in the hills, so generators are a foreman's friend. I do believe he has about 5 of them. not much to worry about in the event of power outage. we could accommodate the neighborhood, I do believe..lol I liked the look of it, in the beginning but I'm to the point now, of just wanting the fireplace to be more decoration than function. I"m not so "little house on the prairie" mentality anymore, since I can't be lifting the firewood, like when I burned all the time, when the kids were in school and would come home to a roaring fire. geez, I even used to bake fresh bread, once in a while for them...hot bread, with butter all drizzled over it..., not so now....I just turn up the heat and curl up on the couch...no afternoon noise, or chaos anymore. and the dog has relocated to the end of the block, at my oldest son's place..lol she gets much more attention over there. it's just me and the chirping birds, during the day. (5 love birds and 1 cockatiel)