Last weekend we went to the Little River Fire Festival. www.littleriver.co.nz

About an hour drive from our house at slow van speeds. Maybe 400 people at the festival? Very nice, friendly, fun.

Maybe this is the south island regional burn already arriving in completed form, and I can ease up on that goal?

That's happening anyway, as my whole universe orients around the new property and my ambitions there. Kiwiburn is also rapidly approaching on the horizon, and stepped up activity around the committee and my projects take all of my burning man time.

And it's spring! We're working hard to get in a new garden bed and some extra boxes for the bees so they can make us some honey :-)

I went firewalking at the festival. Overall I give it a thumbs up, but I am now nursing burnt feet (I know 2 other people who also got burnt, I think it was common).

I knew it was going to be there and I was very interested in doing it, but wanted to make sure I was in the right frame of mind. When the moment came I felt this sort of droning buzz compulsion to do it. I walked away from the crowd, took off my boots and 2 layers of socks, rolled up my 3 layers of leg coverings, walked through the crowd to the coal filled trench, and walked across.

My memory was that maybe 2/3 of the way across (5 steps total?) my feet started feeling hot and I started sort of goosestepping. Looking at this photo for the first time, I see that my feet were probably already burning at the first step.

They definitely felt scorched when I had gotten across, but not that bad. I but my socks and boots on again. As we watched many more people walk across, they started hurting more, then they started to feel better. I guess that was the blisters filling with fluid. I spent an hour or two mostly trying to sit down, but what ended up feeling much better was getting up and dancing!

That was Saturday night, now it's Thursday and my feet are getting better each day. One blister popped which was a bit painful for a couple of days, but my feet are healing nicely.

I did and still do have a very good feeling about doing it. I'm glad I did. Still, it would have been nice if the mystical not getting my feet burnt thing happened. But hey, I walked across 10 feet or so of hot coals!