The Hits: Lighting fires gets me hot under the collar

The Hits DJs, Adam Green and Megan Banks.

COMMENT:
Confession time: I've always been as useless as "boobs on a bull" when it comes to lighting a fire for winter warmth.

My aversion to having to light a fire every day is so strong, that I lobbied for many, many months to replace our old fire with a new gas fire, much to the horror of my partner Ben, his Dad, his uncles, my Dad, in fact any man that we knew.

They just could not comprehend that you would use a resource such as gas when there was wood aplenty.

They argued that you don't get the same warmth, you would forget to refill the gas bottles, what happens when there's a power/gas cut, the arguments of why we should only ever have a wood fire went right through the night, unlike most fires I light.

The problem is I just don't have the time or the inclination. I find it hard enough to remember to take some meat out of the freezer, let alone spend 30-40 minutes tending to a fire.

I use fire-starters, pine cones, tepee style kindling layering, crude oil, whatever method you have for lighting a fire, I've tried it. Yet for some reason, even though I'm a fire sign, (Sagittarius), a little Lucifer I am not.

I still give it a crack every now and then, and after a frosty weekend with no man in sight, I tried again.

Nervously waiting to see if the fire takes, and as usual after much furore and blazing paper, the fire dwindled away to nothing and when I opened the fire box I was left with smoking ash drifting out into our lounge.

I gave up. My dreams up in smoke. My 6-year-old looked up from his paper plane making and made an announcement. "I will light the fire for you Mum," he said.

Every single safety conscious cell in my body said no, but my mouth said yes. And that my friends, is how I now have a 6-year-old lighting our fire.

Yes it pains me that he can do it better than me, but I'm not about to start fighting fire with fire, and I'm letting him do it.

It's for the continuation of the species. The Fireman fire starters. Now I just need to have a chat with Firenzo and get them to design a self-starting fire for the continuation of the female species who would rather just turn up the heat pump.
– Megan Banks

*Don't miss Adam Green and Megan Banks on The Hits Hawke's Bay from 6am to 9am Monday to Friday.