What A Tangled Web We Weave

The Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in New York is in its 85th year, drawing huge crowds of participants and spectators onto the streets of New York. We were on the route by 7.20am, almost two hours before it started, and we were still in the fourth row of the crowd. Unbelievably, some people arrived at 9.30 and thought they had the right to push through to the front row at the barriers!

During the parade, I took over 750 photos, but this is the one I liked the best - of Spiderman in full flight against the buildings of Seventh Avenue, en route to Times Square and beyond to Macy's. There were lots of big balloons, smaller balloons, marching bands, dance troupes, cheerleaders and street performers in the hour and a half it took to pass our point.

We even made friends in the crowd with a family from Long Island. It was their first time at the parade as well, despite having lived there for 49 years. The man assured me it would be his last too! There were also three people from London behind us, and the wee American man was amused at our guesses as to what some of the balloon and characters were. He had to help us with the more obscure American cultural trends that haven't made it across the Atlantic!