Sir Reginald Farquar's Pig Burning Night

      Edit: I put the original post (text with images) after the page break to make life easier :) Disclaimer: the pigs aren't real pigs - they are just pictures of pigs. Sir Reginald isn't a real knight either. He is merely a retired street cleaner who spends a lotof his time alone in the shed on his aunty's farm.

      The fairy, however is real.  

   

   

   

   

   

Hello? Well thanks for looking at the pics. If you didn't read about Sir Reginal Farquar (DSOTM, ABD, MNFLQR, Ret:) then I don't blame you - in fact you aren't the only one.

But good news! Last week I managed to visit 50 percent of the blogs that I wanted to visit. So this week I will catch up on the other fifty percent, but by the then I will be 75 percent behind, so by next Tuesday I will be right back where I started from.... so if you see me hovering outside the door, that's where I have been.....

ORIGINAL POST STARTS HERE

Warning: Incoherent ramblings ahead.

     Every Saturday night in the balmy summer of '86, Sir Reginald Farquar had, what he called, Pig Burning Nights.

    Usually these 'Pig Burning Nights' were a damn lot of fun - what with the squealing and the oinking and the squeaking of the poor pigs.

    But one Saturday night in the middle of May, just before St Margaret's day, Sir Reginald tried something different.

    And that's where it all went wrong.

    Instead of going down to the river at the back of his private mansion, he decided to do his pig burning in public. And where better than on the village green? he asked himself. Maybe he'd finally grab some publicity.

    And so, with this in mind, he'd ordered Frederico the manservant to take the toys down early and stake out the lawn next to the Boer war memorial. The toys, scattered higgledy piggledy around the green, consisted of thirteen bears, one and a half complete skeletons, two train sets, three marionettes and fifty-two life sized, hand painted, wooden toy soldiers.

    Odd as it may seem, these toys were a necessity for Sir Reginald's Pig Burning Nights. For the toys were the only audience - on account of the villagers hiding in their hovels when Sir Reginald was on the loose.

    Yet the toy audience had disadvantages. It was, for example, understandably taciturn - to say the least.

    To add more flavour, Sir Reginald, during the exciting parts of the pig burning, often made 'oohing and aaaghing' noises - and pretended the toys had made them.

    In fact he fancied himself (quite rightly) as a bit of an amateur ventriloquist - especially when the crackling began to spit.

   He hadn't always used toys of course. In fact he'd only been using toys since the previous year when, one lonely rainy Saturday night (his lover Beautrice had left in a huff the week before), he'd realised that Pig Burning would be twice as much fun with an audience. What, he reasoned, was the use of getting the little pink pigs to squeal, to oink and to roast - if you were the only one of God's creatures to enjoy the spectacle?

    Hence the toys.

    But tonight wasn't going 'as planned.'

    For a start, Friday night's rain had dampened the fire faggots. The flames were slow to take and needed three bottles of methylated spirits, one of keroscene and a dash of cheap tequila to get them going.

    Consequently, it wasn't till ten oclock that the fire crackled and sparkled and flamed enough to throw the first two pigs into the barrel.

   Though it was late Sir Reginald had no mercy. In the pigs went, oinking loudly, flipping their flabby arms, flapping their floppy tails .

    Delighted, Sir Reginald laughed his trademark laugh. "Hahahahahaha!" he cried. "Hahahahahahahaha!"

    As the pigs sizzled and struggled and beat their tender pink feet against the sides of the burning barrel, Sir Reginald grew more excited. Making good use of his armour, he banged his chausses, rattled his pauldrons and knocked his iron pallette braces on his breast plate.

   Then, for dramatic effect, he laughed wickedly again. ("Hahahahah," he went - in case you didn't read the first part.).

    Satisfied by the wickedness of his laughter, he gazed up at the night sky, noting with glee the evil clouds of smoke ascending toward heaven, blocking out the nice, pure, clean, virginal, unwicked stars.

    "Guys Fawkes Night!" exclaimed Sir Reginald to the captain of his squad of toy soldiers, "The Burning of Parliament! The Witches of Salem! They have nothing on Pig Burning night!"  At that Sir Reginald laughed once more. (Hahahahahah etc)

    In response the toy soldiers maintained rank. Not one soldier flinched. Not one soldier batted a wooden eyelash. The captain stared directly ahead.

    Unperturbed Sir Reginald turned to the nearest teddy bear - an old fellow with a dirty green patch on his left knee. "See, see, see," he said to the bear, as the flames flicked higher and higher.

    The bear, button eyes unblinking, gazed silently back at him.

    "Well hmmph!" said Sir Reginald, finally put out. "After all the trouble I've gone too, at least you might say something."

    Sir Reginald tilted his head, listening for a response.

    But the bear's lips, sewn together, didn't move.

    "Hmmph,' said Sir Reginald again. Maybe, he told himself, the sodden thing had stopped breathing.

    Then, just at that moment, at that very, very instant, he heard the crack of a twig in the shadows. He almost jumped for joy. There was someone else on the green! Someone had come to watch!

    Quivering, he stretched his neck and listened.

    He waited. And he waited. And he waited. But all around was silence.

    He sniffed. He snorted. He inhaled. He spat to clear his palate.

    Nothing at all.

    But... wait... aha! There was an odd smell coming from the other side of the Boer war monument. An odd smell, a delicate perfume wafting around the garden, drowning out the tasty smells of roasting pig.

   This new aroma was florid and flaccid - like crushed rose petals.

   Ahhahaha! he thought with disappointment - for he recognised the scent immediately. A garden fairy!

    And wearing aftershave!

    Damn cheek!

    Unsettled, Sir Reginald squeezed the neck of the pig in his fist a little harder. The pig squeaked, like it was a pink plastic toy.

   "Come out come out, where ever you are," Sir Reginald said to the shadows. He spoke softly and sweetly and added: "I won't hurt you. Not one little bit."

    But this was a lie of course.

     For Sir Reginald was known, in his home village of Linton, as the Big Bad Fairie Slayer of Lower Beezledom (BBFSOLB) - a title that he denied at his weekly Tuesday meetings with Dr Bazzle Nost, eminent child pathologist - the man who had taught him to laugh wickedly and (unbeknown to Sir Reginald) was the true father of the last seven of  Sir Reginald's fifteen children. (Cont page 45) ....

Hello? Well thanks for looking at the pics. If you didn't read about Sir Reginal Farquar (DSOTM, ABD, MNFLQR, Ret:) then I don't blame you - in fact you aren't the only one.

But good news! Last week I managed to visit 50 percent of the blogs that I wanted to visit. So this week I will catch up on the other fifty percent, but by the then I will be 75 percent behind, so by next Tuesday I will be right back where I started from.... so if you see me hovering outside the door, that's where I have been.....