Big Bang

Well I was assuming he'd be scared.
There's a local fireworks display near us that happens every year. We've been a few times and it's pretty good. We didn't go last year as I was past eight months pregnant at the time and I didn't think I'd cope well with the press of the crowd and standing up in the cold for that long. You can see some of the aerial stuff from our bedroom window though, and it was still nice - but warmer!
I had assumed Joseph would find the noise as distressing as The Cat, who has a tendency to hide behind furniture and be incontinent on soft furnishings. She beetled straight behind the sofa as soon as the first pop was heard and didn't come out again. I have checked and this year she's managed to maintain bladder control, which is a relief.
Andy decided to let Joseph see a few of the big fireworks from the window yesterday evening. He was all dressed and ready for bed in his baby sleeping bag and Andy took him to the window for a look.
As soon as he saw the pretty colours he was entranced. Joseph ended up stood on the window sill (with one of us holding him) for the best part of twenty minutes as the big fireworks went up, big splashes of pink and purple with sprays of orange and sharp white streaks of screaming rockets. He loved every second, although I do wonder was passers by must have thought, this ghostly white shape of a baby in a darkened window! Perhaps next year we'll take him to a display if we think he can cope with the standing around.
We had small firework displays quite a few times when I was a young thing, but it doesn't seem to be quite the fashion any more. The price of getting anything decent has really shot up and all the really fun stuff has been banned for being too dangerous. They have a point, I have to admit. I remember one year we'd bought a special rockety sort of thing that was supposed to shoot up in two directions. One part did shoot up in the air, but the other shot sideways and landed in the bonfire, narrowly missing my brother. At the time I remember we found it all quite hilarious and then chowed down on some home-made doughnuts (thanks Mum, they were yummy) but it could have been different.
Who knows, with modern technology they might find a way to make them a lot safer in the future. Still, it is fun to celebrate the anniversary of something in our nations history that could have been quite significant except that it wasn't because they failed. Instead we burn effigies of a single member of the group who could perhaps be described as the worlds most hapless terrorists.
They really were awful. While the group hid out just before their capture they realised that their gunpowder was damp. Some 'bright spark' had the idea of drying it out in front of the open fire. Sometimes I think they were not executed for treason but humanely euthanised for the safety of those around them.
Long live bonfire night and the perils of damp gunpowder!