I LOVE TO SIT AROUND THE FIRE ...

A couple of years ago fifteen good friends – friends who’ve known each other a long, long time - sat around the fire in our back garden getting pleasantly drunk. Show me an old tiger or lion with scars and wounds from long, hard wars that haven’t healed properly, chipped teeth and claws, but willing to give all his blood in one last battle if he must.

I love to sit around the fire with rascals and pirates and ex-prisoners and Gypsies and bank robbers and Gurkhas and Aztecs and Apaches, I love to invite them into my home and talk about the past, what worked out, and also our indecisions and what scares us.

And I love to laugh at our spontaneity.

And to those reading this who have nothing fake – if you’re a black sheep or a tie-died sheep or a Carefree Scamp - I’d rather sit around the fire with you than the ‘decent, mediocre types’ any day of the week.

Copyright © Karl Wiggins