Saturday, June 28, 2008

An Englishman In New York

Well, strictly speaking, I am neither... but anyway, I often get asked, here in the (South East) United States: "When does England celebrate the fourth of July?"
Of course, I am almost always tempted to reply "whenever we consider the difference, and contemplate the US being a part of Britain!". But that's too subtle, so I usually reply that although we don't celebrate Independence Day do have fireworks on November 5th. In other words, I answer the question that they actually wanted to ask.
Here in our town, we celebrate the fourth six days early. In all the time we've been here, the town has never had a celebration on the day in question: this year it's almost a full week before. It will be interesting to see when they have it next year -- I'd be willing to bet a small amount that even though July 4th is a Saturday the festival will be a week earlier.
We're not actually going to the party -- but it is close enough, under a mile away, that we can watch the fireworks from our deck. We've got our friends children, M (4) and A (3) over too: they're leaving for California tomorrow, so we had them all over for dinner, and their parents are at home packing now: they'll come back in time to watch the fireworks.
So we are all sitting watching kids' television while we wait for it to become dark enough for fireworks. At one point the show exhorted them all to "put your hand in too". Skibo and M thrust their hands out (Skibo telling her "I'll put my hand on your hand"). Boo and A, on the other hand, sat there chanting "Put your poop in too... put your poop in too..." and wiggling their bottoms to suggest the action....

Kids...


Yours, feeling sparkly with anticipation,
N.

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