Where There's Smoke...

A casual Saturday afternoon in Eisenberg.

We are at that divine age where it isn't thought of as odd to have a Saturday afternoon sleep. Of course we are still young enough to employ a ruse of either reading or watching telly, which might as well be classified as sleeping aids.

Bob was doing the former while I was languishing on the couch doing the latter. The child was purring on the radiator and the odd sounds of Eisenberg's afternoon life bore through the supposedly soundproof window. About half an hour in Bob came through alert and fireman-ish:

" Can you smell the smoke? "

and as he made me aware of it, I could. Now all thoughts of gently living out our Saturday afternoon were gone.

Called to action, the two of us inspected every room of the house. Nothing. The bedroom, lounge and entrance hall were touched with smell of smoke. Bob went outside to look at every angle of our house, top to bottom in case we had missed an accidental fire. Nothing. One more avenue of investigation stood before us, or rather Bob.

He went up into the attic armed with torch and a feeling of dread. Nothing. What were we smelling and where was it coming from? Bob ventured out on a further recci and came back with the goods. Turns out a neighbour two houses down was burning up a storm in his garden, feeding branches, twigs and what nots onto a huge pile in his garden. Bloody hell, what an awful acrid smell.

For the rest of the afternoon the two of us have been bemoaning this state of airs...opening windows doesn't help either but at least moaning and complaining about the thoughtlessness of our fellow villager seems to have done the trick...

Biggi