Got a fireplace for the first time in my life, what do I do now?

[MmeTussaudsChmberOfChocHobnobs]

Ok, have managed to get the fire lit.

I am absolutely hopeless at this though. I bunged a firelighter thingy under some leaves and twigs with a log or two on top as my neighbour suggested.

What do I do now? When do I put more logs on? Does it have to have flames all the time or can it just glow?

Do I need the tong things (mum said they are called companian sets, is that right?) and what do I look for when buying them.

It's really up to you - is it your main source of heating or is it more to make the room feel cosy? You certainly don't need a roaring fire to get heat. Once it's been burning a while, an occassional top up will keep it going, as the embers give off some heat. Remember it will continue to give off heat for a while so don't have it burning full blast just before bedtime for example.
You should be able to light it with some old loosely scrunched up newspaper and dry twigs, rather than bothering with firelighters.
You will need something to 'poke' the fire with, rearrange logs etc. Companio sets can often be found in DIY shops, antique shops and specialist fireplace shops (yes they do exist)

It is just decoration really, we have central heating.

I wish I had known about the dry twigs yesterday as it is bucketing down here now. We tried it without the firelighters yesterday and could not get it started, perhaps teh logs were too thick.

It is still burning

Yes - you can't go straight to big logs, give it a chance to catch first. The twigs/sticks really need to be completely dry. It's worth ahving a stash in a shed, log basket if you are really going to be using it. Ours gets used at Christmas - well until we had the kids anyway. It is quite handy ina power cut though!

you can buy a bag of kindling from your local garage to get your fire going! i have ours lit every night, its cleaning it out thats the pain! i still havent done it yet!

Thanks for all the tips.

Don't worry, it is not a new fireplace, just not been used in a while as the last renters could not get it to draw well. (It was assembled wrong)