November Bonfire

For the third succesive year we held our Rangers Bonfire and Fish & Chip Supper on Route 54 at Mickleover, by kind permission of Derbyshire County Council.  Throughout the year we had been stockpiling combustible material. mostly from pruning and hedgcutting operations. This stuff had been secreted out of sight behind one of the platforms of Mickleover Station.
It was quite a job to move the material from there onto the bonfire site, but on Saturday morning along came Supervisor Richard with the Community Payback Team, and they had it all moved by lunchtime. Meanwhile a group of Rangers were busy erecting our gazebo inside which were a couple of pasting tables and some chairs. Nothing else to do but to leave it all and await nightfall.
Although the day had started with rain and cold winds, the sky cleared during the afternoon.
The area was in pitch darkness when we returned and eventually the invited guests stumbled along to the gazebo aided by battery lights and head torches.
Peter Ford then set light to the fire and after a short while we had both firelight and warmth.
The fish chips and peas were on order from the nearby chippie and these were collected by Mavis Ratcliffe who also had provided another of her scrumptious cake offerings, this recipe being appropriately entitled "Firelighter". This was rapidly consumed after the fish & chips, all washed down with tea, coffee and cans of Coke.
We did not have any fireworks, but it was much more satisfying to see, in the surrounding sky, other people's money being rapidly turned into sparks and smoke.
The fire burned on until 10 pm by which time most people were heading home in their ash bespeckled cars having enjoyed a great evening out in good company.

Next morning the embers were still smouldering - see below.

The morning after the night before.

It took a while for the morning dew on the gazebo to evaporate before we could dismantle it and put it back in storage in our vehicle trailer ready for our first event of 2013.

Meanwhile, watching the clear-up operations from a nearby vantage point was this handsome local Moggie who may have taken advantage of some unaccustomed outdoor warmth throughout the night.
Another animal, this a golden retriever, did an inch by inch search of the area with nose on the ground, looking for dead chips or pieces  of batter dropped in the darkness of the previous night.