Bonfire Party 2008

One of my lockdown tasks has been tidying up old file systems, and I was delighted to come across some photos my friend Andrew took at a bonfire party on the 14th October 2008. This was before I started the restoration blog, so now seems to be the right time to put these online. In fact I lost the photos again almost immediately and had use "Picasa" yesterday to grind through my file store to re-locate the images. 

By a happy accident, the red of the bonfire glow and blue of the evening sky work wonderfully and naturally together . No "colour grading" beloved of modern cinema was required. In consequence, they are some of the best images of the castle ever taken and even Andrew was pretty chuffed by his good fortune.

In fact, the photos were taken before most of the guests arrived, but we thought we better light the bonfire in advance as they can take some time to get going. This may have been the time we lit the huge bonfire in advance, only to find it went into rapid combustion that was akin to nuclear fission with essentially the whole bonfire burning away in 15 minutes before the guests arrived. Thankfully,  bonfires tend to have a long afterglow with considerable radiant heat, which works well at an open air event. In 2008 there was essentially no usable internal accommodation at the castle.

I was wondering about the identity of the small figures by the base of the tower. Andrew identified them as his father and his friend Irene. Andrew's father lit the bonfire and held a newspaper aloft for fun during the long timed tripod exposure.

During the early years at the castle I always held an annual bonfire around Guy Fawkes, and this is something that I should reinstate. Because, there were no facilities at the castle, this was the only type of party one could have, so one did it for morale. Anyhow, post-covid, watch out for those castle events.