We Love More Fireworks

These fireworks took some stamina. For some reason the temperature dropped on Saturday, but I went down to see the Thames fireworks, stood on Waterloo Bridge for 45 minutes freezing waiting for them. It all started with a burning effigy which had huge explosions going off when the fire lit them that bounced around the buildings on either side of the river.




The older I get the less impressive firework displays seem to be, probably because I've see many organised displays now and they just aren't as good as I would like them to be. There was a kid next to me who couldn't see over the bridge was looking through the railing who was chanting FI-YER-WORKS FI-YER-WORKS for the last half an hour in a very excited manner - that's how I feel about them but I can't sustain my joy when the display doesn't live up to expectation. And I think that the best times have been when you are close enough to the display to be able to smell the sulphur and gunpowder, there's a roaring bonfire (frowned upon these days for safety reasons) and you go home smelling of burned wood.

I remember a bonfire party when I was at nursery school where there was a huge bonfire in the grounds (probably not that huge but I remember it that way) and we baked potatoes in tin foil round the bottom of it. There was a party in Clapham where they let fireworks off the top of an extension building and the ash rained down on us into the back yard (exciting, though dangerous probably). There was an amazing performance at Victoria Park a couple of years ago with huge columns of fire and music and big fireworks and people wearing Catherine wheel fireworks costumes. And there was the rope of fireworks on the Millenium bridge and the Tate Modern that although went slightly wrong at the start (when they were supposed to be lit under the water and travel through the water before jumping onto the bridge but sadly were drowned out) but was very beautiful looping over the bridge and around the turret of the gallery, leaving behind a burning ember rope as they died away (some of which set the roof alight causing us to be evacuated from the gallery half an hour later).

So after freezing our asses off HS and I went for a bite to eat and sat next to a couple where the woman was a good 20 years his junior and was accusing the man (couldn't figure out whether he was her husband or her fiance) of sleeping with someone else, which he was of course denying (while squirming). He didn't let her look at the menu and chose from his head a range of dishes for them. And it ended up where he brushed her accusation away fairly unanswered. No choice but to believe him then, we decided. She can expect large bouquets of flowers and a big piece of I Love You jewellery I suspect (judging by his own I expect he is prone to the over-blown romantic gesture, especially when under pressure).