Bonfires

I spent last night at home, watching TV, ironing, talking to my son, commenting on some posts, the usual.

When I was a child and even when my children were younger, the 30th April was different. Because it is the evening before the first of May. The first of May is the workers' day, you see. A day to celebrate. And still is. More people are kind of bitter today, knowing that workers' rights are not respected, knowing that not everyone can work and not everyone that works gets paid. But still.

The most attractive part of the celebration were probably the bonfires. People thought of them weeks before the event and built smaller or bigger bonfires. They often used this day to get rid of branches and stuff after cleaning their gardens. We, the children enjoyed this soooo much! We weren't left alone at the fire, of course. The adults were always there.

Now here's the problem: from our small town, shaped like a basin, no flat area but the river flowing through it with the road to accompany it, surrounded by hills, I moved to this valley. Very nice. Beautiful.

But on the May Day Eve you can build a bonfire here and very few people will see it. At home I stepped out of the house, turned around, and I could see ten or so, quite far away, too - and I felt festive. No one told us to go to bed early (we didn't go to school on 1st May), even when the fire almost died out, we could still roast potatoes in the hot embers - not that we liked the potatoes so much, the roasting itself was so interesting. I wonder now what we had to talk about the whole evening - but we were kids and I know we didn't run out of topics. Only a few years ago my brother used to build a bonfire and we gathered there and had a good time, talking, singing, looking at our kids playing.

If we didn't go to bed early, it didn't mean we slept terribly long next morning. No, it was the first of May and the brass band woke us up around seven o'clock or so. What kind of Workers' Day would it be without the brass band?

I'm starting to think now that I'll have to go home for this day next year. But then, memories are one ting, time is another. You can't go back and it's just as good - sitting home, remembering things and talking to my son about them. Bye the way, he went to bonfire last night with his friends and my daughter went to a picnic. And my sweetheart was woken by a brass band.

I must be doing something wrong. :D