Flaming

I love watching the Rugby. Especially any Ireland match.
It’s during the National Anthem, as the camera moves along the team, it reaches the number 9 at the point when everybody is singing,
“Shoulder to shoulder, we’ll answer Ireland’s call….”
The number 9 is 5 foot tall and he is wedged between two massive guys. His shoulders reach their waists.
Irony, expressed through the medium of Rugby.
Brilliant.

It hasn’t been that cold today but I lit a fire any way.
I’ve always loved fire and was one of those kids who would set fire to anything.
I carried matches and later, a lighter, before I smoked.
At 3, I got hold of matches and managed to strike one.
I was so shocked by what had happened, I opened the cupboard under the stairs threw it in and shut the door.
This set fire to some old carpet and the cupboard began to smoke.
My Grandfather began shouting,
“Dear Christ, the gas meter!”
The carpet was dragged out and down the garden and thrown in a heap at the bottom.
Oxygen set that bastard off like a bomb.
Next door’s shed caught fire and because he was a sign writer was full of white spirit.
Fuck Me! Did that go up.
That is one of my earliest memories and the start of a life long love of fire.
I have a coal fire in the front room and I love ‘setting’ it.
Bunching the newspaper into loose doughnuts, arranging the kindling on top.
The scratch, flare and burn of the extra long match bursting into life. Touching the flame to the paper and watching it go up.
Lovely!
There is a special twist to my pyromania, that is probably rooted in my Aspergers’ nature.
Once I have lit the fire it is MINE!
I don’t want anyone else poking and prodding at it. I don’t want anyone else adding coal, logs and when I can smuggle it, ‘Turf’ from Ireland.
It is MY fire. I gave it life.

Burning peat is one of the most beautiful smells in the whole wide world.
(Don’t start whining about the environment! I think filling my house with those energy efficient light bulbs, which means bimbling about in a twilight world of semi half light most of the time, entitles me to a fire every now and then.)
I’m burning a bit at the moment, bought from the Hellish Knock International Airport. It’s about the size of a tobacco tin and cost 4 euro.
The briquettes don’t smell the same as the proper stuff, which are like clods of dried earth, but even with this ‘engineered’ sod, I get a whiff of a stone cottage in Mayo. The memory of a freezing cold quarry tiled floor, an inglenook fire place stacked waist high with turf and a pilgrim soul who said,
“Yes….”

Question of the day.... IS a finger of Fudge just enough?

Soundtrack to my day.... Primal Scream
Taj Mahal
Snow Patrol
Amy Winehouse
MC Solaar
Sia