le bonfire

Tonight we had a bonfire. My youngest daughter has been after me for a while to have another. I think that it is the combination of a roaring fire, cocktail frankfurts, roasting marshmallows and family that makes these such a wonderful affair.

We never do anything much for our bonfires, they are pretty much just fire, food and family. Although tonight we had two of my youngest daughters friends over for the bonfire (but very much for the food and fizzy drinks).

The fire started very easily. The trick for starting a good bonfire is to make sure that the fire is set on the side from where the wind is blowing. This makes the fire go through the stack and everything burns quickly and easily.

Initially, the blaze rose into the late afternoon sky, up to about 8m high. When the main fuel had settled down and all of the thin sticks had burned down, the coals go on burning for ages. Just 20 minutes after the photos above were taken, the fire looked more like this:

A great coal bed that was almost ready for marshmallows, but still too hot. About another hour later, the fire was very well settled and at potato roasting and marshmallow toasting stage.

Here, you can stand quite close to the fire and reach in with the marshmallow forks (about 1.25m long) and have some utterly yummy toasted marshmallows. I love the crunchy outside and the gooey sticky inside of the toasted marshmallow … anyone who eats these things raw is just plain wrong!

We do a bonfire about once a year, sometimes we will skip a year, this years bonfire was a lovely affair. Now I just have to get rid of my youngest daughters friends who are downstairs playing with the Wii.