Guy Fawkes night

It was certainly nice to be back in the UK to sample the fireworks on November 5^th.  We went with good friends of ours to the local charity fireworks display in Cantley Park, Wokingham.  We were wondering, like the organisers whether it would actually go ahead, we had bought our tickets in advance.  Right up to the day before heavy rain was forecast, but instead the Unicorn Club in Wokingham was blessed with a dry night and the place was heaving with people to come and see the fireworks.  It was a really good display, and the bonfire had an Olympic runner with a torch that was lit containing fireworks, which fizzed for while setting the bonfire alight.  The Unicorn Club raised a whopping 23,000 GBP on the night for their nominated charities, including Prostate Cancer and Berkshire Air Ambulance.

The girls loved their present from Kate, a pair of luminous glow glasses, they were very easy to see in the crowds and distracted them completely from the fact that we had to wait another quarter of an hour to get the crowds in through the gates, genius Kate….genius… J

I really like going …’oooh’ and ‘ahhhh’ so enjoyed taking some pictures of the fireworks at the big display, however as they only explode in seconds, it is actually quite difficult capturing them at night when I only have a small Lumix camera (which always copes admirably in low light conditions) and no tripod, which you need for slow exposure shots really. 








A yellow tinged firework looked great, even though I did not manage to capture all of it!

We did of course, also have some of the obligatory fireworks at home.  It's every mans duty to advance on a box of home fireworks and light them to the amazement (or underwhelming disappointment) of their families.  Well, no expense spared, we used some of the fireworks left in the garage.  We thought that they looked fairly dry, and so we went ahead on the next day and lit some....

...most of the fireworks you buy tend to be labelled 'Roman Candle: A shower of golden sparkles'.  'Traffic light, a shower of coloured sparkles'.  I am sure that some of the fireworks we let off were not garden fireworks, but they shot up and let of a tremendous boom, we all jumped out of our skins!  We left a few to set off in the New Year....

Alice and Laura both had a healthy respect for the sparklers (they had both had a safety talk on them at school assembly on the Friday before), not something they have had much of a chance to experience up to now.  I am surprised that with all the Health and Safety regulations in the UK, that they still sell fireworks and sparklers, the ultimate hazardous experience of the year.

Halloween come and gone already....

Couple of weeks back  saw Halloween come and go, and as usual, the girls were both excited about Trick or Treating.  I did try and lower their expectations by saying we may only end up with 1 sweet each.  In Switzerland, they usually ended up with enough sweets to last a whole year!  In Switzerland, our local neighbourhood was much smaller, and we knew practically everyone who lived on our development and the neighbouring one.  A note was circulated every year, and if any family wished to participate, then they simply put a lit pumpkin outside the door.  Everyone else was left in peace for the evening.  When we first arrived in Switzerland, Halloween was a relatively small affair, confined mainly to expat developments.  As we had quite a few American families nearby, we attracted a fair amount of Trick or Treaters from the International School Basel.  The first year I decided to bake gingerbread Halloween cookies, as I bulked at the Swiss prices of sweets.  However I started off with only one batch, which for the first year was enough.  However year on year Halloween seemed to grow in popularity (or our area did), the amount I was baking seemed to get a little ridiculous, and every year I ran out earlier and earlier, until baking over 100 cookies was not enough to last 1 hour, I decided to quit!  I know that some friends of mine got bulk loads of confectionary from the States during holidays in preparation for the onslaught!  I must admit that I did get a little annoyed when I saw parents driving up to dump their kids off into our neighbourhood, so we ended up with half the expat population on our doorstep! 

I cannot say I was best pleased when Steve announced he would be in London for evening meetings on the 31^st.  It was down to me to take the girls out.  Halloween in the UK, you have to be more wary.  Some people really don’t like the evening, mainly in part due to groups of intimidating teenagers taking to the streets and the tricks being disproportionate to the fact they were not given any sweets….  Steve suggested that I should go even as far as parking the car in the street to avoid the issues associated with people keying (scratching) your paintwork.  I didn’t do this, as our neighbour was having a party and the road was already full.  I also think that the problem is compounded as no one really knows each other (or particularly wants to know each other perhaps..) in the UK neighbourhoods any more, and that was where it differed in Switzerland.  Everyone talked to each other, and helped each other out.  We had lovely neighbours there.  In Wokingham, on our estate, I think I only saw a few older children, but it was not nearly as intimidating as I thought it would be.  There were lots of young children all enjoying the evening as it should be.  Both of my girls ended up with a full bag of sweets by the end of an hour and a half, we met some really nice people on the way round and everything had finished uneventfully by about 8.00pm.