A burnt offering?

Last week, whilst on a meeting with my wardens, I casually asked who transforms last year's palm crosses into ah for this year's Ash Wednesday. The answer was brief, yet succinct. "You do. "

Ah, Okay. So with the help of YouTube, I started the process.
I slowly dried out the crosses that parishioners returned last week in the oven.
I then set about trying to incinerate these tiny and rather crispy little crosses. The Internet advice was to use methylated spirits to "encourage" the burning process. We had none, but we did have hand sanitiser, so I squirted some of that on instead. (Take that as a safety warning! )
Then I looked for the large collection of matches that, surely, must exist in every scout leader's kitchen. I found, after some frantic searching, 4 matches!
Hmm, this IS going to be a challenge, I thought.
I did the burning outside, in the dark (for now it was 10pm) and my photo was the sorry result from my first attempt with one of the matches. This was 99% of the crosses, so I couldn't try again, so muttering the motto "Nil Desperandum", I headed back out to the garden, armed with more santiser and the previous matches.
Slowly, through a process of sieving, grinding (my mortar and pestle look rather grubby now) and reburning, I managed it. The final product was about 2 teaspoons of fine black ash, utterly devoid of any trace of bacteria! !.
Next Wednesday, I shall add a few unburnt crosses to the dish and set them on fire - for dramatic effect.
It should be worth the couple of hours work already invested.