Month: May 2009 (Page 2 of 2)

The campfire was crackling away, flames rising a couple of feet off the floor and everyone was crowded around enjoying the heat and the spectacle, as they often did on nights like these on patrol. There was no reason to hide from the enemy tonight, as none of the twilight scouts had reported any movement in the surrounding hills for twenty miles in any direction. For now at least they could relax, albeit with the usual watches posted, and enter into the “campfire way” as they all referred to it. There would be storytelling, perhaps a joke or two and then when the mood naturally took them that way, there would be at least one song before the first to sleep would say their good-nights and head for their tents.

As was often the way, the young men encouraged Inigo, the old armourer who tended the men’s weapons and chain, to go first. He stepped into the firelight, put one foot up upon the hearth and began to weave a tale as old as the hills, that they all knew only too well. Of course the joy was in his telling.

The beach was teeming with people and activity when Greg finally made it down there. Not only was there a Capoeira group having a exhibition style match come demonstration just a few yards to his left, but there were any number of what he liked to call ‘activity people’ getting ready to go.

Canoeists with their surf kayaks, dingy sailors rigging Mirrors. Lasers and the odd one or two more uncommon types, and power kiters getting ready to fly, up and down the beach. One or two hang gliders were being packed away, and looking away towards the far headland Greg could see several more still riding the updraught from the on-shore breeze.

It was basically as he had remembered it from the times a few years before when he and Dana had spent their weekends out there, looking for some peace and beauty away from the hustle and bustle of London. When they had drifted apart he had known it, in part, because she stopped asking him to go down there with her on the weekends. Now he was, oddly, happy to be back without her.

As Lucas bent down to enter the low door of the teepee he caught a waft of incense and felt the warmth coming from the brazier in the middle of the floor and he was immediately taken back to his days of LARPing, and the Burgundian that Hector had offered up whenever the nights got too cold.

A chorus of ‘come in’ shook off his memories of times past and he clambered in through the door hole, covered the opening with the weighted canvas door, and he settled himself down on a pile of cushions.

They were all strangers, of course. The reason for doing this retreat had been to meet new people. Instead of organising it as a group outing for his friends, he had booked a singles trip to the lake.

There was a joint going around that he refused and a bottle of something going in the opposite direction, which he discovered was toffee vodka. As he looked around at all the other happy faces, and the candles and pillows and rugs he decided to relax and enjoy himself; Danica would have been so happy to see him that evening.