Fireworks!

It’s not often that I get to go to a firework display, I’m usually at home with a small child, while Chris takes the boys that are old enough.  Joined usually by one or other of my parents.

Often I’m asked by other relatives and family why I don’t just take all the children, babies and toddlers and all.

Chris took our 3 eldest to a display on Saturday in his parents village.  I hadn’t wanted him to takeep our 4 yr old, feeling he was still perhaps a year too young, but it was an early display and there would only be a few people there.

His parents and sister were surprised I wasn’t there too.  With a 19month old in a pushchair?

Anyway, because Chris had gone out on Saturday with the eldest,  this year I got to go to the major display nearby.

And herein lies the reason I don’t take children under 5 or 6 to fireworks events.

Around 10,000 people were there.
Kids in pushchairs in the mud.
Kids being screeched at by their mothers for not staying close. (Holding their hands springs to mind)
The tannoy booming every 5 mins with a lost child announcement.
Babies screaming their heads off for being cold.
Babies screaming their heads off after the display started because to their little ears,  it was probably like being in the middle of a war.
Toddlers also terrified.
Crying children because their parents are still screeching at them for not standing still.
Drunk idiots.
Pushing and shoving by yobs and the like, who don’t care they’ve just stood right in front of a 7 yr old.

And more scarily, not observed by me, but many years ago, when I was a child, my parents took us to an organised display. A misfired rocket shot off in the wrong direction and landed in a pushchair. The child was in the chair. Strapped in. The parents couldn’t get the child out. That child was severely injured.

While I realise that what happened to that child was a one in a million fluke and probably wouldn’t happen again, that and the above means that its going to be a few more years yet before Oliver goes to a display, and in the meantime, he can enjoy the £10 box in our garden we had this year.