Fireworks

For the past 39 years I've waited with varying feelings for the fireworks that mark the end of Dunoon's Cowal Highland Gathering. 39 years ago, they startled the wits out of me in my first summer living in this house - I had no idea they were about to go off, and in those days they were very, very loud and I had a young child asleep who wasn't asleep for some time after that. When the children were no longer babies who were in bed but instead were desperate to stay up and see the fireworks, I couldn't wait for them to begin. Today, all these years later, I needed a photo for my blip in a day which was too busy for photography.

The Games have been much quieter in recent years, and today the town seems to have been unusually quiet, mainly because all the action is at the stadium; no bands march playing up Argyll Street; there is no street drinking. Even the fireworks seemed quieter, though there was the usual wild noise of all the bands heading back to the pier after the Games ended, all playing at the same time, but playing different tunes. It's like a battle, heard from above the town, and I've never heard anything quite like it.

Tonight, however, would have given me the blip even without the fireworks. That moon behind its drift of cloud would have had me hanging out of the window all on its own.