Our firework night

Every year we do fireworks in the back garden. Every year it doesn't go to plan. The slight chaos is the main point of it. My mother in law's brown bin makes a great table for all the bits and pieces, so that is our base.

We gasped at the very small fireworks, which we'd been expecting to go whoosh up to the clouds.

Then we squealed at the actual rockets which did go very high. We play a game of stand very still and listen to where the debris lands. That bit is unpredictable. They are very small bits and tend to land in the leaves still on the trees. The others have good hearing so get the most out of this ritual.

Each time a firework was lit we moved back a bit instinctively. My mother in law was watching from her window, but then came out to join us, all bundled up to stay warm.

We finally managed to light the sparklers, messing around with many matches took far longer than the sparkler waving itself. It was fun! We made different patterns in the air, I drew the arabic 'b' and the 'y' complete with dots.

Since the grass was damp I suggested we throw our finished sparklers as far as possible, our olympic javelin event. The grass was our bucket of water. It is ok, there was plenty of space.