Unexpected public showing!

Kilt-based fashions, both traditional and contemporary. Come on guys, bring on the pleats!
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Miket
Active Member
Posts: 80
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 7:32 pm
Location: dorset

Unexpected public showing!

Post by Miket »

I recently purchased a new casual kilt from "Best in Scotland" via Ebay (Pictures can be seen on my thread "Early Morning Walk" in the "Personal Stories" part of the site.)

It is a really comfortable kilt, designeded as workwear. So it is not surprising that I wore it yesterday as I spent the afternoon cutting timber to fill our depleted log-pile in time for the cold weather. It was a glorious day and my wife and I got a lot of work done.

Come Saturday evening, I was ready to put my feet up, still attired, as usual, in the kilt, and sat down in front of the TV, whilst my wife made some comment about lighting the bonfire. We have a reasonably sized orchard, backing on to our local LIDL's and we have a large pil;e of accumulated branches, etc, which required burning. (We ARE "green"; we do shred most things, but there is always the need for the very occasional bonfire!)

At about 8.30pm there was a tremendous banging on the front door. Do I change my attire? Do I wait for my wife to answer the door? No, I got up and opened the door to a workman, adorned with a yellow hard hat and a HI-Vis jacket who shouted " Call the fire brigade! Your garage is on fire." Let me add at this point, the garage in question is a rickety wooden structure, full of garden tools, but not used for a car at all. My mind immediately flashed to how much could I get from the indurance, as I rushed out of the house to see the fire, and to find out what had happened to my wife.

The workman came out as well, and we were joined by our next door neighbour, who had been upstairs and seen the flames. I was very clear that the garage was NOT alight, but that the height of the bonfire was such that it gave the impression of at least a 2-engine fire. My wife was there happily controlling the bonfire as she always does (although she did admit to me later that the twelve foot flames had been quite exciting, and more than she had been expecting.)

The three of us stood and chatted, much relieved to see that there was no fire - and there was no comment about my attire, although I may get a comment from the neighbour next time I see her. The workman, it turns out, was a night-watchman on the LIDL's site, as they are currently doing some serious rebuilding of the store and the carpark, and he had clearly seen the bonfire through the hedge.

It's good to know that there are some good neighbours around.
dillon
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Posts: 2719
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2013 8:12 pm
Location: southeast NC coast

Re: Unexpected public showing!

Post by dillon »

I'm so glad to know that I am not the only one who burns mass piles of brush and branches! It is fairly normal to do so here in Eastern NC, but when I mention it to friends in the RDU and Charlotte areas, where air quality paranoia is rampant, they always cringe and ask if there isn't curbside pickup. Well, no...there isn't. This is a semi-rural area, and not a high-tax affluent suburb. And, the fact is that we have warm temperatures and a lot of rain, so if you aren't constantly pruning and sawing, the place reverts to a pocosin-like jungle in no time. When I hear environmentalists speaking of reforestation being a global priority, I smile and know that if I wanted to reforest this place, I need only stop mowing my lawn and nature will do the rest...and quickly!

I would like for my suburban friends to experience Addis Ababa where the smoke of thousands of wood/charcoal cooking fires lingers in the valley 24/7. They would think then that they have little to complain about.

I have also had a local VFD captain stop by when I was burning, but just to make sure I was complying with fire safety regulations, which I was...attending the burning brushpile and had a pressurized water hose on hand. He just said "You're good to go" and was on his way quickly. I think I may burn my growing pile today, since it is now on my mind...
As a matter of fact, the sun DOES shine out of my ...
Tor
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 615
Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2012 3:20 am

Re: Unexpected public showing!

Post by Tor »

Glad the "fire" you were alerted to was only the intentional under control blaze. Done right, burning can be a useful way to deal with brush, but around here quite a few people were quite happy to have a burn ban go into effect because of (often rather close) neighbors who would burn toxic materials. Maybe a finer grained control would have been better, but it is still an improvement over before.

Nice to hear your kilt was easily accepted if seen.
human@world# ask_question --recursive "By what legitimate authority?"
Max Caswell
Active Member
Posts: 33
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2014 2:48 pm
Location: Southern Colorado

Re: Unexpected public showing!

Post by Max Caswell »

You could've thrown some green wood on and used the kilt to smoke signal the fire department it was all okay :lol:
Hello all from the highlands of the San Luis Valley, Colorado
Voyager
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Posts: 17
Joined: Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:42 pm

Re: Unexpected public showing!

Post by Voyager »

Mike, I live in Dorset, near Ringwood, and quite often go into town in one of my kilts or skirts, mostly to the supermarket or cafe, and sometimes with wifey. Its always great fun! Why not join me one Saturday morning for a stroll and a coffee?
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