Good morning from another beautiful spring morning here in Hastings.
This week our skies have been lit up with fireworks. I am not keen on them myself – it is cash literally going up in smoke. Anyway I have resisted the temptation to go out and take some photos until last night.
I went out with good intentions. But I was sooooo slow. But the time I saw the flares I was too late with the shutter so that I just got the last of the light.
So I gave up and just started to take photos of the trees lit up by the street lights.
We have orange street lights here for some reason and the odd white light.
Then I just played around with the flash. This tree is just outside my house.
I have just done a little research on Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Night as we called it here in New Zealand.
Guy Fawkes (; 13 April 1570 – 31 January 1606),[a] also known as Guido Fawkes, the name he adopted while fighting for the Spanish, was a member of a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
Fawkes was born and educated in York. His father died when Fawkes was eight years old, after which his mother married a recusant Catholic. Fawkes converted to Catholicism and left for the continent, where he fought in the Eighty Years’ War on the side of Catholic Spain against Protestant Dutch reformers in the Low Countries. He travelled to Spain to seek support for a Catholic rebellion in England without success. He later metThomas Wintour, with whom he returned to England.
Wintour introduced Fawkes to Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne. The plotters leased an undercroft beneath the House of Lords, and Fawkes was placed in charge of the gunpowder they stockpiled there. Prompted by the receipt of an anonymous letter, the authorities searched Westminster Palace during the early hours of 5 November, and found Fawkes guarding the explosives. Over the next few days, he was questioned and tortured, and eventually he confessed. Immediately before his execution on 31 January, Fawkes fell from the scaffold where he was to be hanged and broke his neck, thus avoiding the agony of the mutilation that followed.
Fawkes became synonymous with the Gunpowder Plot, the failure of which has been commemorated in Britain since 5 November 1605. His effigy is traditionally burned on a bonfire, commonly accompanied by a fireworksdisplay.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes
The origin of the bonfire:
On 5 November 1605 Londoners were encouraged to celebrate the King’s escape from assassination by lighting bonfires, “always provided that ‘this testemonye of joy be carefull done without any danger or disorder'”.[3]An Act of Parliament designated each 5 November as a day of thanksgiving for “the joyful day of deliverance”, and remained in force until 1859.[60] Although he was only one of 13 conspirators, Fawkes is today the individual most associated with the failed Plot.
As a child we always had a bonfire and we would stuff one of my father’s old overalls to make up a guy. I don’t think that is done anymore here. But it was a chance to burn a lot of rubbish, as well as a party. The only problem here in New Zealand, is waiting until dark – about 9 pm before the party really got started.
There have been calls to ban the fireworks altogether – and I agree. There are all the horror stories of animals being spooked and injuring themselves.
This is my post for Ailsa’s challenge over at Where’s My Backpack?: Luminous
Travel theme: Luminous
Luminous Morning
https://woollymuses.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/travel-theme-luminous/
https://juliepowell2014.wordpress.com/2015/11/07/travel-theme-luminous/
Thanks for visiting.
decocraftsdigicrafts 