A fire is like a dog

The old hunter loves to mooch in the Night Planted Orchard and from time to time he sniffs at the fen on one side, or at the thickening copse on the other as if to remember earlier escapades. Then he changes his mind and mooches some more, or curls up in the grass for a snooze.

It seems to me that a fire is like a dog. Sometimes they love to play. Sometimes they are wilfull and ignore every command, content to do their own thing. Sometimes, I confess, they have run off into the fen to mounting panic and bewilderment. Once the embers re-kindled after a week and we found a new fire, like a stray in the rain, raising its smoky snout to the air.

Yesterday's bonfire lay in the grass and refused to get going. It snuffled and grumbled at the tree-bones that we had given it to gnaw on. After an hour, it suddenly decided to play but wouldn't stay where we put it, wandering back and forth across the grass. This year we have given the hedges the full works. A pruning delayed by illness and now encouraged by time back from the lockdown. We had five piles of wood to burn, each taller than me, and the fire's initial response was underwhelming. After two hours, it decided to come alive and after that, it played all day. By nightfall, it was a smouldering pile of ash and embers, red-orange waves rolling like a dog writhing on its back. It was enough to cook food by, in the dark, and make a pot of coffee too. Then it fell asleep, turning to ash, its belly full of trees and snoring.

Fruit from the Desert

As we came back to the work site in the desert to the camp, my Omani companion asked me what my home was like. I said it was flat just like the desert, but green and wet. Often wet as far as the eye can see. He looked at the blazing white expanse and laughed at such a strange idea.

That contrast was the only connection that I expected to make. But I bought home a big chunk of gypsum as a souvenir. Our apple trees suffer from bitter pit and after the long, unusually sodden winter, the orchard is still full of standing water. One solution, it transpires, is gypsum. So my hunk of gypsum has been donated to the grand old bramley and another deeply satisfying connection is made.

"All I've got to show for all the miles I've put away..."

From time to time a new album hits me like a truck and I challenge 2021 to provide a better album than Monovision by Ray LaMontagne* If it does, I will be a happy listener. 

And lately it's the evenings
When I really feel the years

Yes indeed.

*other tastes and perspectives are available.

Three Beautiful Things

1. An elderly relative is on the mend after a scary few days.
2. A long, thin fringe of ice has formed on the Banksia leaves outside my window. 
3. Two hours of new comedy material on zoom. I find comedians like I used to find coffee shop songs, re-enforcing my firm belief that disaster brings new horizons and if you hide your face in your hands and whimper, you'll miss out. We must stand, fight and grow.

Homage

Checking out links that people have made to an earlier post, I found this wonderful piece of writing this morning from Kathy Fish