SparkyCentral

November 6th, 2005

Blistered thumb flesh

The promised rain never materialised, so off we set on the yearly pilgrimage to Blackheath. The biggest free fireworks display in London apparently. Last year was a bit cloudy, and we got there a bit late, and The Vincents didn’t even make it after choosing to drive up. This year we were ready, especially the Rubester who had a full-on bear suit (complete with ears) to keep out any November chills, and deafening bangs the like of which her 4 month old ears have never heard.

Fireworks were OK. The usual pattern of low ones, big ones, even bigger ones, back to the low ones, then more big ones, then the REALLY big ones, then it’s all over. This year had the addition of some waterfall-esque ones whose sparkly bits kept sparkling all the way back down to earth creating a big curtain of sparkliness. Then the trudge home, complete with one incident of juvenile throwing firework at crowd of people and traffic.

Once back in Da ‘Well, attention was turned to the main event. Lidl had blessed us with more of their extra-cheap and extra-impressive fireworks with which to take our life into our own hands, and The Vincents had brought along a box of intermediate fireworks big enough to keep us going until almost midnight. Which is what happened.

It all passed virtually without incident. I managed to burn my thumb lighting a ‘Nebula’ with a cigarette lighter, and Mr Vincent managed to set off a roman candle under the tree which got a bit hairy, but at least this year we didn’t hear the huge rockets come crashing back to earth via someone’s shed! And The Rubester slept through the whole thing!! Back inside for slightly over-crispy jacket spuds with chilli and a discussion about pants, then off to bed, with lavender balm on my now throbbing thumb.

I was going to say “Until next year.”, but of course fireworks will be making an early comeback in April for the celebrating of the nuptials. I’ll let someone else light them then.

Categories: Fun