Outdoors

Today was a real outdoor day. After a morning of breakfast, blip and yoga I went out at about 12 o’clock to start preparing the fire for our visitors. I didn’t come back inside until just before 7 o’clock! We had two fires, a big one in our usual spot up in the corner of the garden and the smaller fire basket version down by the veranda where we had set out lights, saffron buns, tablet fudge, fruit, mulled wine, and ginger biscuits. (See yesterday's photo.)
 Just before the start time I loaded the centre of the (rather soggy) wood heap with dry sawdust in a paper bag, dry wood and a small amount of petrol.  Our neighbour S-E came down to join us and Rose was the first guest to arrive. They saw the fire started with a slightly spectacular whoof!  After the initial burn it took a long time to get going but Jan kept poking, moving bits of wood around and squashing it down and eventually it took off. As it started to get dark our next guests arrived and for a short while everyone was there, before the first “shift” headed home. We wandered between the two fires and the sitting place on the veranda. The fires were there to keep us warm and we kept warm by keeping the fires going, in the usual circular method.  It worked anyway - nobody got cold.  Jan blipped the big fire so I thought I’d take the fire basket again, with a rather nice picture of Karin warming her hands in the darkness.