Bonfire Night

Hello everyone, well, it is November and my daughter and I have succumbed to the silly season of illness - both croaking and snuffling. 

Thankfully though we were both fine on Sunday evening when we went over to my bestest friend Sue's place to celebrate Bonfire Night.  She has a lovely big garden where we can light a big bonfire...

can you see the moon in the background just behind the apple tree?  Here is a blurred closeup of it...

 I love bonfires.  Staring into the flames and smelling the wood smoke, brings back so many memories.  Every Saturday afternoon in the Autumn and Winter my Dad would have a bonfire in our garden when I was little.  By the time it was dark, the fire would have burnt down to the embers, and he used to rake these so that the fire would go out - but for a few moments the embers would glow like stars - I thought this was magical as a small child. 

Sue had cooked up a storm, lots of yummy treats were provided...

and a fine array of fireworks assembled...

I love fireworks...

As more wood was added to the fire, the sparks went flying into the dark November sky...

More fireworks dazzled...

The moon re-appeared from behind the clouds...

And of course we had to have fun with sparklers...

 

Thank you Sue for another lovely Bonfire Night celebration.  Now hoping that me and DD are well enough to visit our local street fair with you tomorrow evening!

 

Helenxx





Autumn Views Challenge week 7 and some reasons to Remember, Remember the 5th of November

Hello everyone, hope you are keeping warm during this cold snap!  We had quite a sharp frost last night, but found a way to keep nice and warm - more of that in a second!

But first, here is the autumn challenge view for this week

More leaves left than I had expected after our recent windy weather, but the leaves in the background are now starting to change colour as well.

Well, back now to how we kept warm last night!  My bestest friend Sue held her yearly Guy Fawkes Night Bonfire and Fireworks Party.  We look forward to this so much as we have so much fun.  Sue cooks a lovely meal (no photos as far too greedy hungry to stop and take pics!!) so after filling our tummies with yummy food we wrapped up warm and went out to the garden where her OH had lit this amazing bonfire for us all

The sparks flew up into the night sky, a little something to get us in the mood for the fireworks to follow

The fire lit up the apple trees - these are still hanging on to a lot of fruit, we have already had some this year they are absolutely wonderful

Then Sue started to light the fireworks...oooooo....

ahhhhhh......

....and you are never too old to enjoy the sparklers:)

A wonderful evening with a wonderful group of friends!  If you would like to see even more and better photos, please take a look at Sue's daughter's blog, Hermione's World, where you will see wonderfully creative photos as well as some samples of her cooking!

I absolutely love this time of the year, so much to see and do, so many excuses to spend time with dear friends.  And now look what has just started to roll into our little town today

its our annual street fair!  Believe it all not, by tomorrow, the crane will have been packed away and a roller coaster will be standing in this spot!  So exciting! 

Helenxx

PS - here is a photo which slightly freaked us out when we looked at it - what can you see in the flames? (no its not photoshopped/pic monkey-ed or anything clever like that).  I thought it looked rather Tim Burton-ish (for those of you who have ever seen the extras disc for Sleepy Hollow!)

Celebrations

Good morning - I hope that you all enjoyed your New Year celebrations and that 2012 has got off to a great start.

We saw in the New Year with Sue and her lovely family - we had such a great time.  As usual, if the weather is good for one of our get-togethers round at her house (she has the most amazing and large garden) we had a bonfire (made of some of our old no-longer repairable IKEA chairs - this by the way is not a piece of negative feedback for the chairs but one of our sons has a tendancy to swing back on them and over about 8 years they finally gave up the ghost)

add some fireworks into the mix...

Then it was back inside for party nibbles and non-alcholic bubbly.  All in all a fantastic night with a fantastic bunch of people.  We used to be of those that spent a boring night in front of the TV on New Years Eve until 3 years ago when we decided to do something a bit different.  Neither family drinks alcohol so a night out on the town isnt quite our thing.  So this is absolutely ideal - big garden for bonfire, fireworks and for the kids to run around, and then be treated to Sue's awesome catering!  We didnt get home until 2am!!!! But on our way out we checked the fire again, its was still glowing

Thanks again Sue for such a lovely time.

Helenxx