Bonfire Night

Ok Monday’s over and I can put the rant behind me, well after this little addendum: the local brother rang last night to find out how his dad was. He didn’t get to the hospital over the weekend and said “We’re on our way to the airport” – he’s taking a short break in Spain apparently. I’m guessing he may have located his filthy whore quite quickly! I was going to post about Bonfire Night yesterday, or our lack of it to be precise. I’m a big fan of Guy Fawkes; he plotted to kill the king and most of parliament, giving us a great night to celebrate his capture. All round a pretty selfless sort of guy (no pun intended). I’ve always been a sucker for fireworks and as a child loved the whole Bonfire Night thing. I’ve got great memories of toffee apples, cinder toffee, hotdogs and that smell of spent fireworks in the air, along with the smoke drifting around from them. We went to some organised displays, but it was the ones we had at home that really excited me. Watching these things fizz, whizz and bang in your own garden was tremendous. So having kids I have always wanted to share this magical excitement with them. Unfortunately I was banned this year from putting on my own spectacular display, mainly due to the previous year’s debacle. Last year Heir no.1 was old enough to get excited himself about the prospect of fireworks. I undertook negotiations with my wife (she doesn’t like fireworks) to secure the possibility of a home display. As a joint effort between me and him we managed to wear her down and gain official permission. So in the great father and son tradition, we set off to procure the fireworks. Due to the protracted nature of the negotiations the choice of fireworks was restricted. i.e. all the best ones had gone. Still, there were some boxes left and one was duly purchased. It was only when we got home that I noticed it said that there should be a minimum distance of 17 metres between the spectator and audience. Now our garden isn’t that big, but the plan was for me to be outside pyroteching, or whatever the correct term is, and the family would be watching from the safe confines of the house. No problems there then. The big night came and it was fairly wet, but that wasn’t going to stop the show, after all the family were nice and warm inside and I don’t mind a bit of rain in the name of entertainment. All started well, the Catherine Wheels span, the Roman Candles spewed their multi coloured sparks, the rockets whooshed safely off and exploded in clouds of stars. Fantastic. I was saving one firework for the Grand Finale – it promised multi shots of shells in different colours exploding at different heights. Perhaps in hindsight I’d become a bit blasé or perhaps I just wasn’t thinking. It would seem that I neglected to secure this firework in the same way I had with all the others. BIG MISTAKE It started well enough – some shells rose about six feet then exploded in a beautiful cloud of colour, I can’t remember exactly what colour. I was more struck by the fact that the firework when ejecting the first shells had slumped onto it’s side, at a jaunty angle. Now the laws of probability would state that there was an equal chance of it falling in any direction. Of course Sod’s Law takes precedence and overrules such randomness. It decreed that the firework should be pointing directly at the house, with me in the middle of the two. It probably only lasted about a minute, but those 60 seconds are some of the longest of my life. It is probably the closest I will ever come to being “under hostile fire” and for that I am grateful. The sheer speed and apparent abundance of the shells was terrifying. Normally I complain about how short fireworks last, I was willing this one to end far sooner than it did. I ended up flinging myself around the garden in an effort to avoid these missiles. Some exploded well short of me, others whistled over my head and exploded near the house. As the fusillade stopped, I was face down in wet grass. I got up and turned towards the house to indicate I was ok. The contrast in faces was marked. My wife’s face was ashen and she looked horrified, Heir no. 1 was grinning like a lunatic and jumping up and down. He clearly thought that this was an even more exciting addition to the display. I took my scolding from my wife like a man, and spent quite some time explaining to Heir no.1 that fireworks are dangerous and that was something which shouldn’t have happened. So this year, no fireworks were allowed. I tried not to sulk too much.