Friday, November 16, 2007

5th of November remembered

This bonfire night I toned things down somewhat, keeping the danger levels in the red, rather than into the ultraviolet. I decided to take my push-bike to the party shop I traditionally buy my semi-legal fireworks at and so was restricted to what I could carry (quite a lot, as it turned out). So I plumped for a box of assorted mayhem as opposed to one big f**k off firework, not so much display as decommissioned.

Went round to friends house, placed fireworks at one end of garden and small children at other and, by and large, things went well.

Right up until a 32 shot special flipped on its side half way through firing.

Things went from good to Bagdad in a moment. This thing was about one-third the size of a shoebox and was firing off balls of light that made loud bangs when they exploded – it was like Black Hawk Down shot at Hogwarts. The missiles were coming towards us and, to put it mildly, it was exciting. Luckily they were skimming two inches above the lawn and hitting the wall the patio was raised up on, which we were all now cowering on, laughing manically if you were an adult, howling with terror if a child.

It was all soon over and slowly my pulse returned to normal, as did my hearing, which was a relief.

Frankly, although we had saved the best and biggest until last, the rest of the display was an anti-climax. There’s nothing like the thrill of mortal terror and threat of death by firework to make you really appreciate a good display.

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