Cocktail sausages a la Neanderthal

Following a cheerful team effort, Lady D.I., the children and I enjoyed a tasty meal in an idyllic setting.







Yeah, roight. Their promise to help me gather the twigs and branches resulted in three miserable pieces of rotten and waterlogged wood being thrown hastily at my feet before they resumed their favourite activity: torturing each other and screaming like pigs being dragged down a back alley towards the man with the stained apron and the sledge hammer.

I had to get all the wood (small and super dry twigs, small and sort of dry branches, medium sized not particularly dry branches - in order of placement on the pyre where Superquinn cocktails sausage would meet an untimely - and unsightly - death).
I had to light the fire, make sure that it would survive, thrive even.
I had to fashion some cooking implements with my bare hands, and the little key-shaped foldable knife/mini saw that always get through security checks at airports, even though the blade is viciously sharp.
I had to show Lady D.I. how to impale a cocktail a sausage in such a manner that it may stay on the cooking stick long enough to be cooked to the desired level (cremated on the outside, raw on the inside).
Safety instructions were calmly communicated. And not heard.
Safety orders were screamed. And unheeded.
Tongues were burned and their owners not consoled. "I told you so, didn't I?!" being the only words of comfort hungry and narky parents were willing to dispense.
Lady D.I. was in a grump for most of the proceedings, mostly due to the fact that she was cold. Had she moved closer to the fire during the sausage impaling exercise, she would have discovered that it had heating as well as cremating properties.
Once the kids had their fill of crunchy-raw sausages, I cracked the pack of marshmallows open.
More burned tongue, more cries, more molten marshmallow smeared on faces and stuck in strands of hair.

And yet, my instinct tells me that we will do it again.
And that deep down I will enjoy it as much as I did today.

It ain't that easy to smother the Neanderthal in me.