Last night I had a fireworks party - mainly cos after shelling out £30 in a 'two for one' deal, I thought I might as well have as many people as possible watching them.
I'd made loads of mulled wine for the adults, and I'd had to keep checking the taste, obviously. So by the time I went to set up the fireworks, I was a little merry. 'Bury to the line' it said on some of them. Well, that obviously wasn't really necessary, was it? Just over-cautious, like a sell-by date. And my garden isn't 25 metres long, but that certainly couldn't matter.
So when all the kiddywinks were stuffed with vol-au-vents and cheesy bites, we adults took it in turn to light the fireworks. Lots of drunken stumbling about, and screams of 'run daddy, run!' from various children as fathers had their eyebrows singed whilst lighting more than one firework at a time in shows of bravado you'd have thought they'd have grown out of by now.
And then there were the Roman Candles. Such a demure sounding name that we didn't suss it was them until after the event. Each time they were lit, they'd fall over and spew bangs and fire at the spectators, almost setting light to the greenery around as their contents broke free of their containers. Parents covered their shrieking children, everyone screaming in terror and laughing hysterically at the same time.
Not as awe-inspiring as your usual display fireworks, but far more exciting!
(You'd never guess I used to work in a Burns Unit, would you?)
