Reputation Preceeds Me

I had a phone call this morning reminding me that this was the perfect week to hide my abyssmal firestarting skills. What better than bonfire night (week) to hide a terribly smokey attempt at a fire/smouldering embarassment?

Having received much advice of the paraffin/petrol variety, I thought I was assured a bonfire of truly gargantuan proportions.
I ran to the plot to escape a tortuous day of accounting boredom, and nipped into Homebase for supplies of accelerant and kindling.

On the plot, just shy of nightfall I thought I’d make some attempt at weeding, it was a bit dark and soggy though, so I could only manage a neat impersonation of a row of weeds. Thorough hand weeding is probably required at a later date.

I started by soaking one of my old and grotty race t-shirts in paraffin and them piling it with kindling and my driest specimens of blight infested tomatoes. With application of a handfull of lit matches, most of my dreams came true as the plot errupted into a fantastical show of light.

I was immediately concerned that I wouldn’t have enough fuel to feed this monster so started looking around for tinder. I admit to glancing at the shed but in the nick of time I remembered the trauma of the erection debacle and shifted my attention towards semi-combustable material left on discarded plots.

You may wish to substitute the phrase “semi-combustable material” with the word asbestos. No sooner had I built a sky-scraper of collected junk than the inferno sputtered it’s final breath. With a dead fire I found myself left with a pile of debris considerably taller than the one I’d started with. If I’d had any sense I would have returned the pitiful kindling back to the originating plots but instead I started splashing paraffin in a willy-nilly fashion and blowing on the embers until I became intoxicated.

Thank god it was dark, I was providing so much entertainment for the commuters on the adjacent railway platform that I can only be grateful that they would never recognise me again.

Tags: fire, Pottering