[Ernie]

For the first 14 years of my life we lived with my Grandma who had very strict rules regarding "The Parlour". For most of the year it was a cold dimly lit place that smelled of mothballs, but at Christmas and special occaisions Gran used to take a shovel full of fire from the living room and place it in the grate in the parlour, which was quite a risky business but luckily there were no mishaps, you could smell the coal smoke for hours after the fire had been moved, but after the fire got established and the room warmed up it became rather cosy, I remember the winter evenings with the Christmas decorations reflecting the flickering firelight.