One of the great things about living in a small village is that you can pretty much do anything you like – having a fire on the beach is one of those things. Our beachfront area is pretty large, there are two river outlets flowing from the mountains down to the sea and when the rains come, these flood. The downside to this is the amount of rubbish that gets washed down onto the beach.

We have had a lot of rain over the last few months and the rivers have flooded at least 3 times, bringing all sort down to the beach – mostly rubbish but also lots of wood and burning materials. The beach gets cleaned up quite quickly and most of the rubbish is either taken for recycling or burned on the beach. Larger wood is collected by locals to use for cooking and heating, but there is normally lots left over for beach fires.

Last week one of our friends decided to have a beach fire party, so a whole bunch of us joined in. It takes a bit of time to collect wood, but you do need to do this is in daylight and you need a lot to keep the fire going. Palm burns hot and fast as do most of the other driftwood so making sure there will be sufficient for a few hours is vital. The fire need  a few stones to capture the embers  otherwise the wind is too strong and blows them all over the place, so preparation is important.

Some of the guys will bring tagines and cook them on the beach, or meat to barbeque, or make tea but on this occasion we took pizza from the local pizza place. They have a limited menu but they are very good and also very cheap, so as this was a kind of spur of the moment thing, this was the best option for most of us. Others brought a tagine, but the main thing is to bring what you want and just enjoy.

A fire brings everybody together and you can sit and chat, meet new people and just enjoy being out on the beach hearing the waves and smelling the sea. It does get quite chilly so once the food was eaten, everybody gets closer to the fire, keeping it well stoked until we finally run out of wood and then drift back home.