Fireworks

According to news reports last week we had one of the warmest Halloween nights on record. I can believe it. So mild for the end of October. There is a balance with everything. Surely tonight was one of the coldest bonfire nights on record. It was so cold. I don't think my hands have ever been so cold. I was in so much pain when the heat eventually returned to them indoors.

Its a shame that this little town has nothing to offer on such a night. I have a memory from a decade ago when I gave this town no thought at all. I was either indoors or at work. I remember I drove home from work and on coming in my wife was straight out the door to her work leaving me with our little girl who would have been around one year old at the time. I remember somehow finding myself down the local park later carrying her and the two of us standing watching the fireworks display. Later I dropped in at my wife's work on the way home. Its a very vague memory but my wife confirms it did happen.

Today though there is no local display. Partly its funding but this is in essence a small mining village and nearly all the rest have one. All sense of community I feel has been sucked out of this place. There is no display. I read a local website talking of how the local park used to be a focal point for the community. There was a boating pond, a putting greet and lots of other things. Families flocked on a Sunday. Now there is nothing but path and grass. With regards to a firework display though I think we are too close to Strathclyde Park where there is a huge one. That is all well and good. Getting in and out of there though is a nightmare at the best of times and we had no desire tonight to be sitting late on stuck in traffic with the kids at school tomorrow.

So like every other year we had to improvise. During the day we bought fireworks from Lidl and took the kids outside to set them off at night, Truth be told they were pretty lame. Its just as well people in neighbouring streets were setting off heavy duty ones. The kids to their credit just played around with the occassional gasp as something lit up or popped. I think they were happier just to be running about with sparklers. It was so bitterly cold. In the end we were glad just to have marked the event and quick to get back indoors to the heat.