A Blog Post for Simon

Simon, did you ever have one of those days where you had busy day and you were trying to decide whether you should do something else in the evening? Well, that was a decision we needed to make earlier this evening.

So before we came to the Netherlands, we heard about bonfires they light on Easter Sunday.  They have been doing this in northern Europe for hundreds of years.  Anyway, we walked a lot today and were pretty tired, so we took a vote in the car to see who wanted to go to a local bonfire.  It was a close vote, and we decided to rest for 30 minutes and then head to the bonfire.

We drove down some country roads for about 20 minutes and when we saw some cars parked at the side of the road we parked and started to walk.

And then we saw it. Simon, it was massive.  A huge pile of trees and branches. Like picture your house and multiply it by five, it was that big.  About a hundred people were there and we stood around for a few minutes, and turned our heads to the sound of music.  A tractor pulling a wagon with a 20 person brass band on board.  Walking behind this wagon was a group of children around your age.

The kids had long candles and lit paper bags at the base of the pile and then a farmer carrying a bucket full of water showed up.  But is wasn't water. It was gas.  He started throwing buckets of gas of this small fire. No joke.

In 10 minutes the fire was so hot that we had to move back 20 metres.  It was one of those evenings where we were glad that we decides to try something new.