Three Dont Tango 9

The saplings lean and fall. Soon there is a tangle of brushwood all over the stumped ground where once had been a thicket.
I pile up the wood and light the bonfire. I strip the branches from the stems. The thicker wood is stacked by the wall. This will keep our fire indoors going better than the damp birch from the valley, and keep us warm through the winter.
The flames catch, and flare up. They race higher and higher. The wood hisses and crackles. Every now and then a fierce whine twangs out. I throw on more wood, and the ground clears, while the flames leap into the beech tree above, singeing the lower branches.
Annabel comes out and helps. Cephren is pottering around with a small wheelbarrow, his mop of fair hair flopping about. He peers over the four-bricks-thick wall of the kiln. It is getting dark. Snow is still falling. The flakes drift down slowly in a disinterested sort of way, as if they have nothing in particular to do today. There is a thin layer across the ground. Meanwhile the flames burst upwards, a bright fierce colour against the snow.
"Let's do some potatoes in the ashes," suggests Annabel, and skips down the bank and into the house. I push at the branches, and Cephren sits on his little red tractor in front of the blaze.
Annabel returns and we reach into the ashes with the spade, making hollows in the bright red embers, and push in half a dozen potatoes. We sit on our boxes as the dark deepens. The snow is still falling. The flames are less violent now, but still there is plenty of wood to burn, and the fire is throwing out a lot of heat. We are hot in front and cold behind as we watch the flames flicker and spurt, and the logs collapse, and strange pictures form and disappear in the bright inferno.
Soon the potatoes are done. I scrape around in the now grey ashes, turning them over. The breeze fans the ashes into palely glowing embers. Annabel has brought out a tray. We slice through the partially charred coats of the potatoes to the hot flesh inside. A dab of butter melts quickly and runs down the wrinkled skin and onto my fingers. I sprinkle pepper. On the tray are pickles, and cups of hot cocoa.
The smoke rises up through the gently falling snow and a warm glow shimmers above the fire, throwing out echoes which flicker across our faces and warm our hands. I can see the dark shape of the high wall around our secret garden and I am warm and safe. Annabel is chattering. Cephren is licking the butter off his fingers. I am staring into the pale red centre of the fire where the slowly falling snowflakes disappear.
How simple is the stuff of happiness.

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