Over the winter we had a few trees in our hedges decide that they couldn’t stand life any longer and fell into part of the orchard. Over the last week or so I’ve been out there with the chainsaw, removing what would be suitable for the log-burner this winter (or even in the chiminea over the summer) and stacking what was left (including some savage bits of blackthorn) around a large old sycamore stump. Eventually I ended up with a heap about three to four metres across and perhaps five metres tall.
Very little effort was required to get a fire started and I was amazed how fast it got going. At one point we had flames that were getting close to ten metres high. Of course I forgot to take pictures, but my daughter appears to be permanently attached to her phone these days and she has some videos. I shall try to get a copy of them from her. Once it had died back a bit both my son and daughter toasted marsh mallows on the end of some sticks of green willow. I remember when we had bonfires in my own childhood my parents used to wrap up potatoes in baking foil and put them in the hot ashes to cook once the fire had died back. I really must try that again one day.