Walpurgis night

Traditionally on the last day of April, Walpurgis night or Valborg, as it's called in Sweden is celebrated with bonfires and outdoor festivities. I've spent a little time on Wikipedia to sort out the background but the whole thing is such a great muddle of ancient christian and pagan traditions mixed with more modern traditions of burning all the debris from the winter season. All traditions include alcohol and obscure meetings with the devil and so on. All in all it's too complicated for a simple blip.

Our little friendly gang had organised a bonfire by The Pond. The daughter of the creator of The Pond has spent long days clearing huge amounts of bush wood from the sides of The Pond and wanted some help burning it in the tradition of the Valborg, Last-of-April bonfires. Everyone helped gathering the bush-wood into great heaps and there was going to be a grill in place for sausages or whatnot and maybe some personal alcohol for those who wanted that kind of thing. 

We had a lovely evening by The Pond with a lovely sunset, birdsong and calm weather. Nice conversations, stories and grilling. The bonfire, the main event, never took off though, see extra. Despite lots of attempts setting fire to the heap of wood, it never took off. But it made a lot of hissing, which meant the wood was still too damp. The fire has to be put off till midsummer, the summer solstice, when the next chance to burn bonfires occurs according to pagan traditions (see Wikipedia again). We'll see if the wood has dried till then. Or, it'll just be another reason to gather the group for a good time together.