Sunday, November 5, 2017

Remember remember...

the Fifth of November.  This weekend is bonfire weekend here in the UK.  Today, November 5th is Guy Fawkes Night.  Guy Fawkes is the best known member of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.  Fawkes, along with some other co-conspirators, leased an undercroft under the House of Lords and loaded it up with gunpowder.  The plan was to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne.  The Brits commemorate the foiled plot.  I say Brits, but if I recall correctly from my time in Scotland, the Scots celebrated the attempt even though it failed.  It's celebrated with large bonfires, burning effigies, and fireworks.  Our friendly local banker told the boys that the large bonfires are because they burned Guy Fawkes alive at the stake (thanks for tonight's nightmare, Ian) though I believe he was actually tortured and hanged.  We tell Dempsey that the fireworks and celebrations are for his birthday, which he gets a kick out of.

Fireworks for Dempsey's 5th birthday!

Victoria spent Thursday and Friday in London visiting with a friend in country for work.  Friday, I took the boys to the local Cricket Club just up the street from our house for fireworks.    We went with friends from work.  All proceeds went to charity.  The pints actually taste better when they're for charity and since everyone enjoys being charitable, you feel better having more than one.  There were two shows, one at 5:45 (yes it's plenty dark at 5:45 nowadays, and getting darker still) for the kiddies and another at 7:30 for the adults.  We stayed for both. 

Saturday, we picked Victoria up from the train and then Lincoln and I went with some of the same friends we attended the previous night's festivities to the Cheltenham Football Club match.  It was round one of the FA Cup and the Robins were playing Maidstone United.  Maidstone had more fire in the belly and outmatched Cheltenham 4-2, though there was plenty of excitement (6 goals, 2 red cards.)  Afterwards, we walked back to our friends house to meet up with the women and walk to the Cheltenham Racetrack for more fireworks and carnival rides.  The fireworks show was really good and the spectacle of bonfires dotting the hills around town was medieval. 

Today was Dempsey's (golden) birthday.  We spent the morning at another friend's birthday party and then took Dempsey to his favorite restaurant for lunch, which is also where we'll be having his party next week.  My little guy turned 5.  He opened his presents.  He got Mousetrap the board game.  I always wanted that when I was little and now it's mine!  Seriously though, I had nothing to do with it.  It's intricate enough that once you get the game together once, you never want to take it apart.  We'll see how long it all lasts, but it is a pretty neat contraption.  We actually don't even play.  We just trigger the mouse trap and watch it do its thing. 

Happy birthday, D!  Stop getting bigger now.  We love you mucho!


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