Guy Fawkes

Remember, remember, the fifth of November.

Guy Fawkes Night fell on a Thursday this year, and at the tail end of our isolation period, so we were bound to our flat to watch hopefully from our windows. 

While the official fireworks display was Covid-cancelled this year, it's the done thing for families to purchase their own fireworks and set them off in backyards, common spaces, and celebrate as per King James 1's Observance of 5th November Act: which was an enforced annual public day of thanksgiving for the Gunpowder Plot's failure in 1605. Nowadays, it's much more of a relaxed celebration which has lost a bit of it's original focus. 

From 6pm, with full dark settled across the sky, the fireworks began and once again, we became grateful for our flat's location. Facing out to the street and on a corner of the building, we have 180 degree views and got to see so many fireworks - big ones, small ones, quick successions, once off's. We saw them reflected off low hanging clouds, saw the air become hazy, and the smell of smoke permeated everything by the end of the night. Until 11pm, there were constant pops, crackles, snaps as they went off around us - it felt like we were in a giant bowl of Rice Bubbles :P 

Unfortunately, my attempts to take photos of the fireworks were poorly timed and impeded by trees/rooves/distance...so instead here's a photo of the view sans said fireworks.