Last night we decided to light the bonfire and burn the mountain of wood that has accumulated over the past few weeks of building work. Sometimes fires take ages to get going and you end up having to throw some petrol over them ….very nervously in my case!  But this fire wasn’t like that. With loads of dry gorse on top it went up like a rocket and soon was crackling and snorting with flames and puffing out smoke.  Soon the pile was disappearing. Some of it was still damp but this fire didn’t pause or falter.
It’s a great way to get rid of things too.
I threw on old bank statements and accounts. Old client notes from London times. Two fat diaries full of angst from a few years ago.
I went and brought out two chairs that ‘could be fixed but I’ll never get round to it and there is no way I am dragging broken furniture all the way to Spain’. We have plenty of broken things over there already!
Then the shopping basket – ‘oh it’s so nice I can’t bear to let it go but the handles are broken so I can’t use it..maybe it could be fixed….” NO!  Onto the fire.
What joy!
The flames are cleansing and exhilarating.
There are things you can sell and give away, things you can throw away and some things just need to be burnt – there are things that can’t be donated or sold or relegated to the dump – burning is the answer.
I had a lot of those programmes you get when you go to a funeral. I suppose they remind you of the person but really I’d rather remember them alive.  And the growing pile was depressing in itself – so many people gone.
Anyway, you may be glad to know the teddy bears are still safely propped up on the piano – no furry animals were cast into the flames.