Burn those catholics
My parents have always had slight qualms about the catholic-burning celebration that is Guy Fawkes night. And to be honest, when you think about it like that, it would be a bit tricky to explain to foreigners why we are hoisting an effigy onto a bonfire. But I am happy to suspend these qualms temporarily (and the ones about scaring small animals and horses, and burning hedgehogs accidentally) in favour of having a bit of bonfiretastic fun.
Saturday night ticked all the right boxes:
Saturday night ticked all the right boxes:
- Very cold weather
- Toffee apples (home made!)
- Lots of domestic mishaps (dropped wine glasses, broken lighters, catherine wheels that don't go round), just to add that sense of authenticity to the procedings
- MUSHY PEAS
- Some fantastic fireworks
- Some disappointing ones. Including the biggest and most promising-looking one...
So we all had a very nice time.
And today it is equally crisp and sunny outside, so we are indulging in another traditional pastime: cycling to the pub.
posted by OboeJane at 12:49 pm
4 Comments:
It's time for me to walk down nostalgia alley....being careful not to tread in the 'crottes'. It was always absolutely FREEZING on Bonfire Night when I was a child (in the fifties). We used to have a bonfire in the long garden behind our council house in Hastings. We had sparklers to wave around in the dark (making our names in the air was a favourite activity) and there would be a display of Roman Candles and Golden Rain fireworks. There might also be a rocket or two and the inevitable dud Catherine Wheel.....(another religious symbol of doubtful taste).
The biggest treat, though, was the potato, placed in the ashes of the fire. It was blackened on the outside and rock hard on the inside but tasted fantastic, especially with that durt gurt knob of butter slapped into it. Ah... happy days. Life was so uncomplicated and unsophisticated then.
I remember being boiling hot at the front of my little body and freezing cold at the back!!!!(standing too close to the fire?) My mum always made me wear this home-knitted navy blue bonnet which was really really itchy scratchy which I hated, and I so remember the night the catherine wheel flew off the pin and went straight up the short trousers leg of cousin Nicholas - which then involved a trip to casualty at Sheffield Children's Hospital and two subsequent skin grafts!!! Toffee apples that ripped your gums with the sharp edge of the toffee, and burning your mouth on a hot sausage, but the fantastic ride home on Dad's shoulders more than made up for it all!!!, and don't get me started about snow and sledging (oh no I'll save that story for January!!) I do have to disagree with you about the horses though - some really go through hell on Bonfire night (and New Year's eve) with the fireworks, and every year a few have to be put down as they get seriously injured panicking and jumping gates etc...very sad. My two are okay with fireworks actually and stand at the stable door watching and going "ooh" and "aaah".
It's not that I don't care about the horses / dogs / hedgehogs.
But given that I was contributing to their terror/extermination, it would have been hypocritical to go on about it.
It's another of those things that I feel guilty about.
Loved to read about Tracy's bonfire experiences. As dubious as the 'celebration' is, I hope that it doesn't get superseded by the ghastly Halloween shenanagens. But did you see the Lewes bonfire procession that dates back to before the Gunpowder Plot? It was pictured in the Guardian. They do still burn The Pope in effigy and this year the political figure to get a roasting was Condi. I don't think that I ever went to Lewes but I did go to Rye which used to have a huge procession and enormous bonfire. There were always casualties because it used to be the thing to throw bangers around or even put them into people's trouser pockets. Hey ho. Like I say, life was so uncomplicated then.
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