emotional pyrotechnics

For the last twenty years or so we have held a bonfire party for family and friends which has grown to be a major event in our social calendar. Our children make an all too rare visit home saying they would never miss it, relatives join us from Liverpool and even bring their friends and our friends and neighbours have come with their children since those children were babies in cots. This year of course it was billed as the last ever Carters' bonfire. The weather treated us well and the fire was enormous thanks largely to the clear out of the garage, the fireworks were great too.

Every year the party has changed as the participants have grown up / aged. As well as the bonfire, fireworks and food, some years there is music, sometimes games. This year, somewhat inevitably, there was a lot of nostalgia and reminiscing about years gone by: the year I cancelled the party and people arrived anyway, the year we broke a window of the neighbour's greenhouse, the year the firemen came, the year we were in competition with a neighbouring display (we won of course) but mostly how strange it was that it would be the last.

My daughters sudden realisation that this could be the last time she met up with OUR friends, who as she said "have been around all of my life" was particularly touching. My son too admitted to feeling " a bit emotional". They have both been working out new ways of making sure they keep in touch with their cousins and how nice it is to know that they are keen to do that.

Of course it was sad to think that is was the end of an era, but things (and people) do move on and it is better to go out on a high than see the event fizzle out or, worse still, become an occasion people feel a duty to attend out of some sort of loyalty.

As it is it has been wonderful and I hope it won't be the last time we host a gathering of friends and relations for food, fun and music. My heartfelt thanks to everyone who has made the Carters bonfires such a success and occasions I will always remember. But for now as Fred Jordan ( a fine old folk performer) used to say "always leave the buggers wanting more".