h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*has a look at the campfire circle, set in a clearing back from the main site*

*starts collecting dead wood with which to build a decent campfire*

*wheels a small cart with a pile of dead wood over to the campfire circle and stacks it neatly*

*begins to refill the cart with more dead wood that is around the Campsite*

*hunts around for kindling, punk and small wood sized pieces*

*Pulls up in a hired van and offloads a stack of pallets*

*Drives off, returns with an axe and starts chopping pallets*

*clears the ground around the fire place*

*rescues a base pallet and starts building a small fire on it*
*gets out some egg-cartons stuffed with tumble drier lint and hides them under the main wigwam of sticks, adds some dried leaves*

*continues to build the fire till there is a respectable size, though not too large for starting, fire set*

*stacks the rest of the wood neatly nearby, graded into size*

*fetches a number of metal buckets filled with cold water*

*drags from her tent a big metal box, filled with books and marshmallows and chocolate biscuits and some flour and water and a good quality torch and a first aid kit and a blanket with lots of badges sewn onto it*

*finds some nice green sticks and cleans them up*

hmm - do you think we are ready?

Yep I think we are, if you'll do the honours...

As we seem to be inspired by scouts here, can we have the inevitable explosive baked bean can on the fire?

We're more inspired by the Guides (hence the navy-blueness of my tent) and so will have the blue and green and purple flames rather than the exploding can. Anyway, all the scouts I know do exploding beer cans, rather than baked been cans.

*lights the fire with a single match*

*after feeding it a bit, starts singing (to the tune of London's burning)*

[public domain song]

Campfire's burning, campfire's burning
Draw nearer, draw nearer
In the gloaming, in the gloaming
Come sing and be merry!

the scouts I knew would never have wasted a can of beer in that way.

Beans on the other hand fly well, and leave an interesting trail.

hmmmm

*mixes the dough for dampers*

Hello, everyone. I just pitched my tent in 13073. I'm not wearing a fur collar - that's Cleo, my 'fraidy-cat. She's scared of every new experience, but I think she'll adjust, once she gets used to the idea. At least she isn't sitting on my head - she's been known to!

I spent lots of my misguided youth camping with my family, and went to a Church camp every summer, so I love a campfire.

How's the fishing?

I don't know about the fishing, but there are some dampers ready to twist onto sticks, cook over the fire and then run maple syrup down the middle and eat.

Dampers are new to me. How do you make them? With maple syrup m-m-m-m sounds good to me!

Flour and water mixed together to make a dough.
Then roll them into long thin sausages and wind the sausages around a green stick (cleaned and that isn't poisonous.) Cook over the fire. Pull the stick out from the middle and drizzle syrup or honey or chocolate spread down the middle.

We didnt call them that at my Scouts, cant remember what we did call them though, so that is their name from now on for me...

Scouts often call them twists...

That is exactly what we did call them!!!

Genius!!!

*wonders how to get more people to turn up to the fire*

*adds quite a bit more fuel, and gets it burning really hot and high*

*staggers through the undergrowth clutching a bag of and a bottle of *

Hi everyone!

*Finds a particularly nice mossy stone to sit on close to the fire*


Anyone for a ?

Now we're not going to have any Kum-by-ah now are we?

*sings*

"Oh I walked around the corner
and I walked around the block
And I walked right into a doughnut shop
I picked up a doughnut right out of the grease
And I handed the lady a five cent piece.
We-e-e-ll she looked at the nickel and she looked at me
And she said "This nickel isn’t good for me!"
"There's a hole in the middle and it goes right through."
I said "Well there's a hole in the doughnut too."
"Thanks for the doughnut. Good day!" "