Welcoming the Light

This magnum opus is a heap of brush and roadside detritus several feet high, carefully deposited in the exact centre of our hill in the Lanark Highlands. The noble pile has been some time in the making - all year long, as we felled dead trees, cleaned up the oak groves and removed debris from the ditches along the road, we dragged everything to the top of the hill and threw it on the brush pile. As the pile climbed steadily higher over the summer, that became a difficult exercise at times, and the bigger pieces were a real challenge.

Sometime around December 21 (Yule), there will a celebration on the hill. We will toss a match on our gargantuan brush pile and and light it up, then stand well back from the flames and bask in all the lovely warmth with friends, wassailing each other with cider and tea and toasting sticky marshmallows afterwards. One needs a very long stick to toast anything at all as the heat generated on these occasions is just amazing, and one can see the flames a long way off. Of course, there will be photos and commentary when the brush pile "goes up".

Then next year, we will start building another one................