Fireworks are cool

Remember fireworks night when you were a kid? A bonfire on the vacant block, the neighbourhood dads attempting to blow their hands off with gunpowder, the local demon-spawn kid terrifying you with double-bungers … ah, those were the days. Can’t think why fireworks sales were banned. Despite the sheer terror that sparklers continue to instil in me (like needles on turntables, I’ve always been too scared to touch them) I remain entranced by fireworks. There’s something magical about the catherine wheels, the hummers, the roman candles. They draw me like a moth to a flame. But nothing will ever beat the intimacy of the vacant block. Fireworks in the distance just don’t cut it for me. I want to be right there, underneath ’em, illogically fretting that the pyrotechic rain will fall on my new jacket. Fortunately, our local Rotary club puts on a fabulous fireworks display at the local oval each year. It’s a bit like Brigadoon. The Rotary club’s website offers the cryptic message that it HAS an annual fireworks night, without including an actual date or time. But when you get a feeling in your waters and just turn up – because it’s usually on Mother’s Day Eve – it’s very noice. Everyone lays picnic rugs on the sparkling astro-turf (fark, I reckon there’s about a million bucks of the stuff laid on that oval, going on the crazy quote I got for the muddy little patch in our backyard), drinks wine, scoffs sausage sizzle and fairy floss, and lets their Fred Bare-clad kids run wild. There’s the occasional loud-speaker announcement requesting that “the kids who’ve climbed to the top of the wire fence GET DOWN”, but generally it’s pretty civilised. At the ultra-family-friendly time of 7pm, the fireworks display begins, boom, boom, boom. A balding, middle-aged DJ spins a soundtrack of Katy Perry’s Firework and whoever sings that “party in the house tonight” song and it’s bloody fantastic. This amazing yearly fireworks display should satisfy me, but it doesn’t. I’m a sparkle junkie. If I hear there are fireworks anywhere within a 20km radius, I’m desperate to attend. Last year, we sardined into a town square with 100,000 Spaniards for the finale fireworks of the La Merce festival in Barcelona. It was incredibly exciting and atmospheric until those 100,000 Spaniards started trying to un-sardine themselves from the town square afterwards and race to the train station simultaneously. Then it got a bit hairy. Though not as freaky as the “children’s” fireworks parade earlier in the week, where people carrying sticks with spinning fireworks ran through the crowds, sending sparks in all directions (but preferable to the “adults” fireworks parade where they actively chased people with them, obviously public liability isn’t a big issue in Spain). Last month in Hawaii, I made Husband and the Sprogs sit in the dark on Waikiki beach for two hours, waiting for the Hilton Hawaiian Village’s Friday night pyrotechnic display. Perhaps I should have done my research a little better, but I was sure someone mentioned them starting at 6pm … Fortunately, fireworks are so magical when they finally happen that you forget the interminable wait that came before. Well, I do. I’m not sure about Husband. He seemed a bit miffed.