Feet and Fire

I spent half an hour trying to extricate my feet from my crocs and then my crocs from the deep wet clay they'd sunk into. Mu and Isaac stood in their boots and laughed at me.  They said it was just a puddle, but it was in fact the gateway to hell, pulling me into its darkness.  Bernie watched, nonplussed and I was reassured that he didn't have three heads. 
I reminded my daughter that only a week ago I had hitched all 60 kilos of her onto my hip and carried her across a lake sized puddle.
three hours later the clay had started to dry and crackle.  Mu said that you'd pay a fortune for a foot clay mask in a swish city salon.
When my brother comes here from his stamp-sized 6th storey flat in the old fishing quartier in Barcelona he becomes a hunter gatherer and has to light fires.
His ability to identify ash, oak, plane, poplar as well as bird songs is impressive for a city boy.
We go down to the river as the sun dips and he lights his fire in a ring of stones. I sit down-wind because I like the smell of smoke in my clothes,  I wash my  crackled feet in the river, dry them by the fire and admire their city salon perfection as the sun goes down.