Remember, remember the 5th of November

So last night was bonfire night, and Mr Man, the Woof Dog and I made our annual forray to Dawsons Hill to see a birds eye view of a selection of South East London's and, in the middle distance, Central London's finest fireworks.  You might think it was a bit mean of us to take Barney with us, but he is a hardy city pup and loud bangs, sirens and bright lights do not phase him.  Plus if he is with us we can give him cuddles, where as if we left him at home there is almost guaranteed whining and woofing.  Not because he is scared, however, but because he does not like to miss out.

The weather was trying to be cold, but unfortunately due to the twenty minute walk to get there (mostly up hill) and my internal heating system which seems to give me hot flushes more often than not, I was down to just a light top by the time we got to the bottom of Dawson's Hill. This was a shame as I do like to wrap up warm and cosy when it is very chilly outside, and so on the way back I persevered with the gloves and scarf as long as I could before conceding defeat and stripping off again.

Dawsons Hill is a small patch of grassland on a fairly steep hillside in East Dulwich which has the fortune from the top of looking out over the city.  If you ever see a city scape of London painted from a Southery Perspective then it is likely that the artist was either at, or using inspiration from a photograph taken from Dawson's Hill.  It is a tiny bit of a pity therefore, that in the 1960's whichever London Borough was in charge of the area at the time (probably Southwark) decided to build two fairly hideous looking local authority housing blocks on top of the hill. Some people think they look like giant warships on top of the hill, and whilst I think they look terrible, apparently someone in local goverment has a soft spot for them and they are due to be listed.  Anyway, the view which is probably wasted on most of the people who live there is fairly impressive, either during the day, or at night when the city is lit up, so it makes sense that when there are firework displays in most of South London's major parks that you would get a good view from the top of the hill.

Having lived in Valencia, the home of gun powder and pyrotechnics in the modern world, for ten months as a student I find firework displays in this country rather disappointing.  In Valencia during the annual Fallas festival which lasts for around three weeks in March there are five days at the end of the festival when at midnight each night there is a 20-30 minute firework extravaganza which fills the sky with colours and sparkles like you have never seen before. It is a constant delivery of bangs, screams and explosions against a backdrop of rainbow showers, golden stars and silver sparkles which lasts for what seems like eternity.  They even have fireworks during the day where the emphasis is more on the noise and the smoke than anything else.  These daily audio-spectacle known as La Mascleta is everyday at 2pm in the town's main square during the Fallas festival. They even record the event and Essex girl has a CD recording of this strange event called "La Mascleta Virtual" which is essentially just 5 minutes of explosions and deafening bangs. She has it on in the car these days I believe during the pre-school run, and if she doesn't then she really should.  It is awesome!

So back to last night.  The Brockwell Park display looked quite good from a distance if a little short, and the ones at the Dulwich Sports Club also looked quite impressive.  The ones we decided were at Blackheat also looked fairly decent as did some in the middle distance which could have been coming from anywhere to be honest.  It was a bit hazy last night and without the aid of a map it is sometimes quite disorientating trying to work out which bits of London you can see as it all merges into one in the end. The ones that some locals had decided to stage actually on Dawsons Hill would have been quite good had they not decided to launch them from a large box on the path leading up the hill which meant that you had to walk very close to a box of exploding fireworks to get to the top of the hill or brave the long grass and go cross country.  It was fairly irresponsible of them as there were no signs to warn people that the path was being blocked and from the looks of the people who were lighting them, I am not surprised that they had not thought this particular eventuality through. Similarly, it was interesting to see the number of small kids who were being given sparklers by their parents and left to their own devices.  We left before the inevitable burning of hands and other accidents started to occur but as we were walking home there was a significant number of sirens heading off to presumably deal with people who are too stupid to heed the advice of not playing with fireworks.  In a way though, playing with fireworks is just a modern example of Darwinism in action, and so in the interests of not interfering with evolution, I think there is a strong argument to letting them get on with it, and so we did just that.

By the time we got home, we had a nice walk, seen some fairly pretty lights go whoosh and bang in the sky and worn Barney puppy out a bit, and so a very nice way to spend an evening. We got to see not one but several displays without having to deal with the crowds attending a massive display and could easily walk home afterwards.  Perfect.