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Recipe for a roaring success

Ingredients:

1 adult, woken by usual canine "We're hungry and our bladders are full!" alarm. At 6.40am. On a Sunday.

Several hours pre-Christmas, of back-strain-inducing labour in the garden, moving felled hedge and fallen tree

1 bowl of porridge. Dried blueberries.

1 apple

1 flask of coffee

2 over-excited "Are you taking us for a walk?" dogs

1 Sunday Times newspaper (last week's - the three headline words Vicky, Pryce and Trial, innocently lacking their new running mate, Farce. Hah! Spluttering isn't a sign of old age, is it?)

1 pair of wish-I-could-wear-them-all-the-time Muck boots (Sigh - definitely a sign of ageing - not in the senile I-want-to-splash-in-puddles-because-I-think-I'm-a-little-girl way, but due to the ... arthritis!!! ... in my toes and because Muck boots have memory foam soles and they're all cushiony and walking-on-cloudsy. Oh dear, now I do sound like a senile little girl!)

1 day when the wind is in a SSE direction which means we can be considerate to the neighbours

1 match



Method

Drink coffee

Give apple core to dogs

Rip up newspaper - puzzle dogs who recall me telling them not to do this. If they could read that it is not today's - the one that I rescued from the front-door, before they helped themselves to a bit of shredding practice - they might understand. But they're dogs ... so they joined in my shredding game.

Pile up some dry twigs into a wigwam shape

Push shredded newspaper into base of pile of twigs

Strike match, light paper and step back



Then, remember the need for a fire-break and spend a frantic few minutes clearing one so that the now Blazing Bonfire Number One doesn't leap the divide and begat Bonfire Number Two. Then, spend an anxious morning wondering of the gap is big enough.

Run indoors to collect phone - in case of emergencies and for calling-up cups of coffee and for photos - rapidly ordered back outside by Littlest. She was clutching her nose and pulling her jumper up over her face so I'm not certain what she said, but it was something along the lines of  "Ooh dink, Bummy!"

Try not to barbeque Bertie Baggins or Four-legged-friend



Several hours later - mid-contemplation of how to reduce my massively inflated carbon footprint, smoke in hair, up nose, in coffee (cold), and definitely 'dinking' and definitely fed-up inhaling ash - head indoors; procrastinate for eleven hours and finally write blog.



Procrastination is the enemy of writing.

Procrastination is also the enemy of music practice - in my case, it's procrastination tinged with embarrassment (I'm not ready for a public performance ... of all the notes that I still don't know, strung together in a faltering flow that refuses to resemble what I imagine playing in my head. In Littlest's case, it's a procrastination that walks hand in hand with a song - many songs, and hums, and general musical vocalisations that pertain to music practice, but involve little practice of scales and arpeggios.


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