Bonfire and a BBQ to end the day

The second update to this blog today, aren't you lucky. I'll crack straight on with it without too much preamble as I want to get it out the way.

As I said at the end of the last update we were to bed last night pretty early, after eating a small amount of dinner. I for one slept pretty much right through without waking and I think everyone else did also. There was no alarm call this morning but A was up and out to let the puppies out, and do the birds, even earlier than she normally does. I'm not sure why she did this but she did come back to bed and we slept for another hour or so before I was up to make brews; the parents had already woken up and made themselves something well before we were up and about. It took some doing to wake up this morning and I was out on the balcony reading my book while A stayed dozing in bed. To be fair, she deserves this time to rest. We work hard.

A after unloading all this from the trailer

After our brews it was time to kick ourselves into gear. I headed down first with the chainsaw and axe and used almost an entire tank of gas chopping big logs, just using the axe to trim little bits down. After a few minutes A came out and decided that I was doing well enough with the chainsaw and she would go and unload the trailer which was STILL parked up by the burning circle. She was still doing this when I decided I'd had enough so I went up and gave a little hand, mainly removing the nails and metalwork from previous burns which was making the circle dangerous to walk on; A did get spiked with one towards the end which looked very painful indeed.

Here is the bonfire we built

With the trailer emptied we decided to stay up there and build the bonfire as we guessed later in the day neither of us would have any desire to go back out and do this. I pulled all the bags that had been stashed down by the other back door and we incorporated them, but there was so much wood that about half got thrown to one side a bit further from the burn so we could add it mid-burn or save it for another fire. It didn't take that long to do this and when it was completed we went inside for showers and breakfast.

Back in Room 13

Breakfast was bacon on toast as we ran out of eggs (well, we had two but I dropped one and that meant no one got any eggs) but it was really nice anyway. After breakfast we relaxed for a bit (I did the update for yesterday on here) and then we got a list together and A went out to town to shop for BBQ stuff and a fair few other bits and pieces that we needed. While she was gone I cracked on with the main task I had lined up for the day; moving our office back into Room 13. I easily moved A's desk and stuff in but my desk is rather large and impossible to move on your own without taking it to pieces which I don't like doing. My mum got involved to help and between us we lifted it into the room then she had a brainwave to put it on a large sheet of cardboard which meant we could just really easily slide it into place. I was able to get it all done and even play my "turning the amplifier on" music (Nessun Dorma, in case you've forgotten) before A got back with her shopping. We're both really happy to be back in here again.

Really neat job of the distribution box

My dad had been hard at work as well this morning at first trying to fit the plugs in the twin guest room but I can't find the plug socket unfortunately so he just went into the roof and tidied up everything up there. He's done an absolutely excellent job and the box is so clean and tidy and easy to add things to it's brilliant. I haven't got any pictures but on and off mum has been outside sweeping and picking up glass and she has done an excellent job as well, moving around to spots of the patio which are in the shade at that time.

Tomatoes from our garden

BBQ on, relaxing in the garden

I think everyone has been feeling pretty jaded still after yesterday and certainly the parents and A had a good long snooze this afternoon. I played my game for a bit and then went through and also slept, waking up feeling quite groggy and struggling to get motivated to move again. We came through after a while and I played a few more turns of my game before realising it was  time to make a start on the BBQ and bonfire we had planned. We carried everything out onto the top bank and I lit the BBQ while A was feeding the chickens and then we put the meat on and called the parents out. The forecast was for 50% chance of thunderstorms overhead but at this point the weather was still pleasant and it was even nicer for the sun being behind a cloud so it wasn't so unbearably hot.

The fire just starts to take hold

Once everyone was out and we were sure the BBQ would stay lit we had a short discussion as to whether we should light the fire now and decided to go for it so off I went with my matches and within short order it was fully alight and blazing upwards. It always amazes me just how quickly this burns and how short a time it lasts. The wind wasn't too high fortunately though it did pick up at one point which prompted some energetic efforts to keep the little conflagrations around the edge from spreading too far.

Ready in case any wood fell outside the circle

There was one taller bit of the bonfire which as it was burning below became more and more precarious and so I got a long length of solid wood just in case it fell out of the circle, so I could flick it back inside. After a few minutes of watching, however, it became clear that this wasn't going to happen so I went back to the normal routine of holding a watering can and splashing water on my face to cool me down as I went in close to put out the small spreading fires.

Awesome picture by my mum of me throwing water

There weren't that many examples of this during this burn, thankfully, but a couple of times I did have to go in quite close to throw water. My mum had the camera and caught this excellent picture of me trying to get a large-ish eruption to stop spreading. It was so hot I was sweating away and as I say I had to keep splashing water to cool myself down. Eventually the fire burned down to a level where it was no longer spreading like this and I could relax.

Flames leaping very high into the air

The fire at this time, however, was really going for it and flames were shooting up to the sky. This old window wood really does catch fast. Around this time the Little Lady went past and we had a short conversation with her though it was hard to understand her this evening. I think she invited us for coffee and then said she was off to go and find her cows, and the kmet's.

My dad was videoing the fire from lighting it to it dying down and I have put it together as a bit of a medley. The focus on the camera goes a bit towards the end; I'm not sure if this is because of the heat, but you can still get the impression of the intensity of the blaze, the noise it caused, and see me fighting the spreading fire in moving picture format. Enjoy.

It slowly subsides

The BBQ was still sizzling away however it wasn't ready which was a good thing as we wanted the bonfire to be low by the time we were eating. It was burning down fast as usual however, with the amazingly hot core glowing white, the wood taking the green tinge from the paint, and the flames still shooting quite high though not as high as before. At one point the wind changed direction 180 degrees and got quite strong so I was back up with the watering cans to make sure it didn't take on the brush near the fire then but it didn't so I went back to get my dinner.

Sausages spitting on the BBQ

First up on the BBQ were chicken drumsticks and sausages, the latter were spitting away happily when I did get to sit down. Not long after it was time for a refill of beer, and lemonade, and when I got back I found my plate set on my chair. It was really tasty, and the lovely pasta that A had made through the day (her setting fire to a dish towel was the most amusing part of this process) was awesome. We were all pretty much too full to eat the kufte that we added on so we'll have them tomorrow probably.

The fibreglass certainly started off looking like it was burning

Huge clouds of black smoke

It hasn't changed shape; just gone black

We decided to leave the rest of the wood for another burn at a later date however we did throw on the plastic bits that needed burning and the fibreglass steps which had been part of the play furniture here at the school. The plastic went very quickly however the fibreglass put out oodles of thick black smoke and didn't seem to shrink in size at all. It was still there when I came in to write this update.

There goes the thunder storm

The promised thunderstorm did not hit us however it definitely happened as we could hear the thunder and every now and then see the lightning from this huge storm just across the way. At first it did look like it may come towards us but then it turn 90 degrees and shot off along the valley towards Greece. We could have done with the rain, and it would have been fun to have shown the parents a real storm here, but at least we got the benefit of the slightly cooler air from the fringes of the storm.

The sun goes down behind the trees

We stayed out by the fire watching it burn down until the sunset started to happen so I encouraged my dad to get onto the roof terrace to get some pictures for himself while I packed everything up and and passed the chairs up to A onto the balcony so people could go and sit there and watch the sunset. While I was doing the shifting I saw a lovely shot through the trees so I grabbed the camera and it came out really well.

I came straight in here to do this update and I left the others to enjoy the evening and according to my mum who just came through it was lovely. I'm going to wrap this up and publish it then get in the shower and scrub the day off me before heading to bed for a well earned sleep. It's been a corking day, and tomorrow promises to be another.