Smoke Get in your Eyes
Have you ever sat so close to a fire that smoke’s got in your eyes? It stings and your eyes water profusely. And yet, we can love the warmth of the fire more than the disagreeable experience of the smoke getting in our eyes. Have you ever found that?
There is something so magical about sitting beside an open fire and feeling the warmth of it melt into your skin the way butter melts into hot toasted bread. And speaking of toast. I have to say, despite the wizardry of technology, no toast I’ve ever eaten tastes better than the bread that’s been pronged through on a long fork and held in front of an open flame to brown. It’s just is one of the most delicious tastes in life.
When I was growing up, I enjoyed toasting bread with my cousins Douglas and Norris in front of their open fire. It was such a simple pleasure. Immediate too which is important when you’re young. It was an easy way to demolish an entire loaf of bread without giving it too much thought! Gee, I loved those door-step slices.
The smell of open fire smoke tends to take me to specific places in my memory. As a kid we used to celebrate Guy Fawkes with some of the neighbours. I suspect there was a more practical reason attached to why it would be celebrated on the farm. I recall one year on Te Tui Station having witnessed a flurry of activity in the days leading up to Guy Fawkes Day.
All the trees that had been blown down in high winds were bulldozed into a huge gully, piled high like some seemingly ‘out-of-place’ funeral pyre. Then on the actual Guy Fawkes night the whole thing was set ablaze creating this most unforgettable bonfire and clearing the farm of the accumulated debris.
Against a pitch black night sky with Catherine Wheels spinning frenetically on poles and sky rockets hurling themselves heavenwards at break neck speeds, it was a great sight. I can smell the smoke in my nostrils as I write this, uncanny that.
It’s the same sense I get when I think about the fire in the Pub at Wollombi in the Hunter Valley. There, they throw burly logs on the fire to warm the hearts and hands of pub patrons and if that doesn’t work then they pull out their local weapon, Dr Jurd’s Jungle Juice, a formidable local brew of somewhat dubious origins! It’s guaranteed to warm the cockles of your heart (no question).
When smoke gets in my eyes these days I figure the watering eyes is just a small price to pay for a moment’s reverie and as the saying goes, where’s there’s smoke there’s fire and to my way of thinking, toast too!
