Happy 2012 to you!
Just a quick post on our New Year's Eve here in Berlin. As predicted back in May, fireworks were exploded everywhere. I still don't much like them, but can appreciate the pretty, quiet ones.
Tim and Rhiannon have become full-blown pyromaniacs though. Fireworks have been on sale for a while now - just small, 'gentle' packs with miniature pyrotechnics and unobtrusive "cracks". We've had a few sessions of 'exploding things in the garden' which makes them both very happy.
After Christmas, however, much larger items and packs were available from supermarkets. Finding them generally accessible was rather shocking to me; perhaps I'm behind the times (or ahead) but I thought fireworks should be sold very carefully.
Anyway, Tim bought several selections, nothing too outrageous. I was most impressed with the metre long sparklers. They took forever to catch alight but each lasted about five minutes. That's my kind of firework.
We had been invited to join neighbours at 11pm for a display so Rhiannon stayed up to see the New Year in for the first time. At the appointed hour, we wandered down the road but nobody was around, nor were they at home. Slightly disappointed and a little miffed, we decided to let our fireworks off in our garden.
There was no fear of affecting anyone nearby as the explosions emanating from the woods and streets around us cancelled out our meagre offerings. After that, we went upstairs to watch distant displays.
At midnight, the quantity of explosions increased dramatically... and continued until about 3am. Grr.
Thankfully, Kita was fine during most of the event but understandably got a little anxious when rockets started to come into our garden.
The next day we gathered a large bucketful of firework rubbish from the lawn; the streets around us were literally covered with the same.
Was it worth it? While fireworks obviously make many people happy, I still don't understand the attraction of spending a fortune on something that, quite literally, goes up in smoke.