American expats
Well if we thought we were a bunch of Halloween Grinches -just take a peek at what our counterparts in the UK think of bonfire night! Not a firework fan among them!
I love fireworks. I'm a bit scared of setting them off myself, but I love seeing other people's fireworks and the professional displays, and I love it when I can see them for many nights in a run. It never bothered me people setting them off when it wasn't bonfire night. (As long as I could see them ;)) Am I alone in this? None of my pets ever showed signs of being scared or came back maimed, although we kept them in after dusk on the main nights of festivity. You could hardly hear the fireworks from inside the house. I miss bonfire night -how did your parties go, all you who held them?
Also, the American expats talk about people setting fireworks off on the "wrong day" like it ought to be a capital offence, and yet here they are set off for a week either side of the 4th July ...
in the freaking daylight when nobody can see them! At least they brighten up the dank dull November nights over there......
I'd love to do fireworks tonight except a) it's raining and b) I'd have the Sheriff around pretty quick I imagine, where I could ask him why he wasn't out catching a real criminal wink
That's pretty grinchy of the US expats but as you say, some of us were very grinch-like regarding Halloween so I suppose fair is fair.
I'm sure I've mentioned it on here before but I will never forget the time (about 1996) when we had a work's bonfire night party at Maidenhead Rugby Club and one of the rockets tipped over as it launched and flew between me and my best mate's heads!
Best fireworks ever!
Well, I couldn't read it because they insist you sign in and I've had at least three user names deleted over there because of "non use".
I don't know where they lived over here that they never heard fireworks go off on the wrong day.
I would have had a bonfire yesterday if I was allowed to burn anything in this city. But I'm not. We are also banned from buying fireworks in the state of Colorado. Which is why about 20 miles from the Wyoming border there are all kinds of advertisements for firework shops just across the state line. However, in a way it's sensible as there is an awful lot of fire danger here in the summer.
Fireworks are set off here for weeks before 4th July, Memorial Weekend, Chinese New Year, Jewish New Year. In fact, so far this year it has felt as though we haven't had much of a break from some type of firework or fire cracker going off either just across the road in the park, down the street or in the distant sky. And yes, during the day when young children are in the park is not really the best time to set the things off! roll
Yes, I miss Bonfire Night. We always went to an organized fireworks display from being quite young. I remember there was a big one on Cleethorpes Beach for years, then we went to the one at Waltham Windmill just outside of Grimsby. When the children were babies we didn't go but as they started to get a bit older we started going again. Generally where my mum and dad lived near Boston. The only other time I ever remember fireworks going off in the UK was in the docks of Grimsby for the New Year.
I am really surprised to read that the Americans in the UK are finding the fireworks annoying when we have them going off here a heck of a lot more than we ever had them going off in the UK.
I didn't bother clicking on the link because I expect I'll have trouble looking in like dianey. I have never been grinchy about Halloween, however I was grinchy about fireworks in the Netherlands.
I suspect they are complaining about the fireworks for similar reasons I complained about the ones in Delft at the Millenium. There they were being set off willy-nilly in the street by kids who would light one and walk away nonchalantly while watching over their shoulders to see if they scared any unsuspecting pedestrians who walked into them. I had a 5yr old, a toddler and a baby in a stroller and I was always afraid that one of these things would hurt one of my children. I don't usually worry about everyday "dangers" but that was something that bothered me.
I really miss the baked potatoes in the bonfire..... Fireworks are louder nowadays than they were even 15 years ago...... I still don't think the 4th July is a patch on November 5th.
Oh, I know they're entitled to be Grinchy, just the same as we are about Halloween ...I think there's something particularly that bothers people about holidays they didn't grow up with. Me, I'm a Thanksgiving Grinch lol I was just taken aback by how many of them hate bonfire night and how much they hate it, but didn't want to rain on their parade, so to speak mrgreen