Tea and Cakes

There’s not going to be any flickr fiction again this week.

While I like the pictures, and do want to write something based on some of them (which is partly why I haven’t read or commented on the pieces written by the rest of the group - Donal,Elimare, Tadamack, Aquafortis, Chris, Valsha, and Neil.), I just haven’t felt like focussing on one thing for very long this week. Last week I was lost in the lace knitting and a good book.

I probably won’t be writing anything based on this week’s picture, but I will tell you why I selected it (I don’t usually pick the pictures, but I did choose this one).

I was browsing through the “Last 7 Days Interesting” sets on Flickr, and found one that had fire in it, but didn’t grab me. The fire did though, to a perhaps slightly worrying extent, so I took myself off to the creative commons licensed section of Flickr, and had a bit of a browse for fire related shots, and this one was exactly what was in my head.

Mt Victoria Fire by Phobo from Flickr.

I really like the way the fire seems to be exploding out of the trees - it gives the impression that something has either landed from the sky or is flying up. It made me think of children setting off fireworks, of meteors zooming out of the sky and crashing into the trees, of the moment when a small fire gets out of control and takes over, of the beginning of destruction, or the beginning of life.

When I clicked on the picture to see it properly I read that it was taken on Mount Victoria in Wellington, New Zealand, and was a bonfire as part of a Guy Fawkes display. I lived in Wellington for almost a year, seven years ago, but I arrived in Wellington just after Nov 5th, and left just before, so didn’t see any displays.

Knowing the background to the picture made it both easier and harder to write about - on the one hand, I could put together a tale set in Wellington pretty accurately (ohhh, maybe there’d be an earthquake), on the other hand, it’d be harder (but not difficult, lets face it) to forget what I know about the setting.

Anyway, hopefully this weekend my inspiration will return, and I’ll start writing again. I think it’s hiding in a chocolate bar. I just need to find the right one.