The other day, on a sunny Saturday in March – a remarkable late-stage recovery in the weather for Tāmaki Makaurau – four cubic metres of firewood got dumped on the footpath outside our house by a man named Myles. “That’s your afternoon sorted,” he said, and drove off in his pristine white tip truck.

This was the culmination of many weeks research for me: much discussion, much scrolling. Some of our wood last year arrived wet and scrappy, and this made me very unhappy. But Myles had the real deal.

Anyone who knows me will tell you of my fondess for fires: this weekend, friends are coming around for a four-burn night. First, we’ll light the hibachi for quick grilling and then get the ancient Weber going for something more substantial. We’ll light the outdoor firebowl (possibility of s’mores), before adjourning inside to the little open fireplace that was built with the house and which we were delighted to find was in working order when we moved in. We use it most nights in the cooler months: my mum always talks about warming the bones of an old house, and she’s right. 

The wood is now stacked in the woodbox under the house and under a tarp up the side of the house and in my latest pride and joy, a wood stack outside the back door that my son Ira and I built using brackets my wife Hannah found on the internet, plus some bits of timber we had pre-cut at Bunnings. (Power saws seem unwise given my predilection for accidents.)

I spent a happy afternoon chopping timber to size and stacking it neatly in the new frame: now, instead of going to the woodpile in the rain, we just open the back door. It’s part of the rhythm of our winter evenings, to light the fire while the kids get ready for bed. Without it, we feel unsettled. The cats pace the house.

It might have been unconscious, but I realised as we made the finishing touches to this issue that every house has a fire, and that made sense – both in my head, and also in the heads of architects and owners seeking to create refuges and retreats, in cities and on hills. (Side note: you’ll also find a lot of window seats, and that speaks to the theme as well.)

Because it’s not actually about the fire itself, or even the fireplace. It’s the ritual: the calling time on the day and the lighting of fire, the settling down and the drawing in – seeking shelter at the heart of the home.

Whatever your enthusiasm, I hope you rediscover your own rituals this issue. 

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