12 November 2011 (Saturday) - Rye Bonfire Parade

The weekly weigh-in: three more pounds have gone. That’s got my weight heading in the right direction, and perhaps at a slightly better rate than it has been.

Perhaps laying of the beer has helped.

Laying off the beer might have helped several villains up north. Having evaded the law for some time, they were suckered by a phone scam. The police phoned them up, told them they’d won free beer, arranged a time and place for delivery, and when the villains were expecting to get free beer, they got arrested.

I can’t help feeling that was a bit mean.

To town to the bank and a bit of shopping, and then we called in to visit one of my grand-dogs. Fudge isn’t feeling very well at the moment. He’s been off his food for a few days, and apparently has been dull and listless. I was worried, and when we visited he did seem somewhat off-sorts. Whilst he was running around, he was nowhere near as excitable has he had been in the past. And he still wasn’t eating. However whilst we were with him, he noticeably chirped up, and drank a bowl of milk. I suspect he’s eaten something he shouldn’t: maybe he’d swallowed a bit of something he’d been chewing (a fragment of his bed, perhaps?).

I’ve asked for regular updates on the pup, and we left him (and his entourage) to it.

We came home, and I spent an hour or so applying for more jobs on-line. Sometimes I wonder if anything will come of the applications, but one thing is certain – if I don’t apply, then nothing at all will happen.

Whilst applying like a thing possessed, I had an email – over on Twitter Arthur StJames has started following me. I wonder who he is. If he’s following my tweets, he’ll be disappointed – I don’t do many.

And so to Rye for the bonfire parade. Rye bonfire parade has featured as a blog entry every November since I’ve been blogging: and the first ever entry concerning the event mentioned the previous year’s parade, so tonight was at least the seventh time I’d been along. And tonight was a bonfire parade with a difference. Usually I treat the Rye bonfire parade as one big booze up. This year, circumstances have conspired against me, and with the need to economise being paramount, for once I treated Rye bonfire as an evening out and not as a session on the beer. Admittedly there were flasks of mulled wine and mulled Pimms going about, but this time a fortune was not tiddled up a wall. And we had a wonderful time.

Four of us drove down to Rye; there were eight by the time we reached the chip shop, and a dozen as we watched the parade. We shared sparklers and we cheered the procession. And in another break with tradition we didn’t watch the fireworks from the Gun gardens. Because you can’t actually see the fireworks form there.

Instead we walked down to the bonfire and watched the celebrations at the fire, and actually had a really good view of the fireworks for a change.

Having driven down, we drove home. There was no mad rush for the train, and no being squashed like sardines onto the train. We came home in comfort.

And so the fireworks season is over for another year. It seems to have been a very short one this year: I suppose having missed the events in Eastbourne and Shadoxhurst it would seem so. I’m already looking forward to next years’ events.