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The bonfire of my youth
Eeee, when I were young... Sunday nights were a mixed bag of emotions.
School in the morning. Oh that feeling of crushing dread in the pit of your stomach.
Something good on the TV (it was something we looked forward to).
Sunday nights were reserved for big BBC serials and something funny.
For the life of me I can't remember anything I really looked forward to other than Whoops Apocalypse on LWT which was much later in my time line.
In retrospect the ritualistic passing of the weekend was marked by the Sunday night bonfire as Dad burned what could not be put in the single metal waste bin (we now have five plastic bins with various levels of
recycling) .
So the orange and red flames grew higher, it cracked and flexed as I felt the heat on my face grow warmer, like a winter sunburn.
As Dad fed the bonfire and much to Mum's annoyance I would return indoors smelling of bonfire smoke (heaven knows what nasty chemicals were produced from just burning inconvenient rubbish) which marked the melancholic bath time as the first stage of mentally preparing myself for school in the morning.
Bonfires are hardly a thing these days which is good really though I do get a twinge of nostalgia when I think about them and their part in my childhood.