I'm only just home from work, and I've been pulling some crazy hours. But I tell you what I've found... home is so much sweeter for having been away from it so much.
Everything looks cosier, more welcoming, more soothing.
For the last couple of days we experienced a rise in temperature, kind of warm for the time of year, but I know soon it will be cool again, and especially so at night. That's when I put the fire on.
Yes...
My DVD fireplace!
It's so great. It looks realistic, it has fire-crackling sounds, and I find it very soothing. I burn a pressed-balsam incense cone sometimes, and if I lay on the sofa reading, seeing the fireplace out of the corner of my eye, and smell the subtle, wood-smoke scent, I could swear I was laying in front of the real thing.
It doesn't burn down. I'm not sure what kind of loop it's on, but the fire is always cheerfully burning at the same rate. There are other fireplace DVDs you can buy where the fire starts out low, builds quickly to a furious roar, settles and finally, an hour or so later, is just embers. That would be cool. But they costs twice as much, and I like my steady burn.
There is also an option on it for playing holiday music alone or with the crackling fire sounds. All classics, sung by Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby. I've not played that yet.
Oh yes, and last Christmas, the place got a bit warm. One of my guests said, "Could we turn off the DVD fireplace, it's making me feel hot." I loved that.
3 comments:
Ah, the joys of a faux fire! Never--ever--should they be underestimated.
At my old apartment, I had a fake mantel, picked up at Goodwill for a song, and presentably painted by moi. Then, I searched high and low for faux logs to complete the fireplace, and finally found a nice set, made of birch, complete with amber-coloured lightbulb nestled behind the flame-coloured "heart" of the logs....and a rotating brush in the back for that authentic crackling sound.
I placed the fireplace against the centre of the living room wall and arranged two sofas facing each other in front of it, for that chalet-in-the-Swiss-Alps feeling.
Many a night was spent delightfully on the sofa, imagination running amok. One evening I was enjoying apres-ski, the next, I was transported to the outer Hebrides; escape to a remote island being necessary to flee the media-storm which my life had become....
Oh, what fun it all was. Now that I am no longer at that apartment, I still occasionally experience intense feelings of nostalgia for that room, and that fire. Sigh!
Yes... but... now you have an actual fireplace that burns actual wood!
And... it's nearly time to get it going again! I loved your descriptions last year of coming home to a strong drink and a sit in front of the fire. Sigh....
Yes, there is now a real wood fireplace. Be that as it may, I still miss the old living room, the old mantle, and the faux fire. I'd actually love to resurrect it in my bedroom, however the thing is so heavy that it would take 2 strong men to carry it all the way upstairs from the basement. As any woman can tell you, two strong men are in short supply.
Now as for the strong drink, alas, it was only sherry. Last winter it was the amontidallo kind (I'm sure I've mispelled that). This year however I think I shall spring for Harvey's Bristol Cream. I finally tracked down a bottle at the LCBO. As an aside, the bottle is a deep shade of blue. Apparently, this answers the long-held mystery "what shade is Bristol blue?" which has been one of the riddles of my life ever since I read Diana Vreeland's memoirs, wherein she writes, "Of course you know what colour Briston Blue is!". Actually I didn't, but now I do!
P.S. With the return of summer (yet again, another unseasonable spell of warm weather-PAH!) the fireplace season is put off yet again....
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