Knackered From Faffing About All Weekend Part 1

Where to begin? It is Wednesday and we are just now recovering from our eventful weekend. We traveled south and stayed with a friend in the small English village of Wrington (population 2,500). It really was a beautiful place and our friend and his mother took very good care of us. Our trip contained two very big events; Guy Fawkes Day and an invisible circus.

Guy Fawkes Day

Every November 5^th, the English celebrate Guy Fawkes Day, or Fireworks Day. On November 5^th of 1605, a British mercenary called, you guessed it, Guy Fawkes was arrested in the basement of the House of Parliament with 36 barrels of gunpowder. He was attempting to blow up Parliament in hopes of killing the king who was intolerant of the Catholic religion. However, many innocent people would have been killed as well, so Guy Fawkes Day is actually a celebration of his capture execution and effigies are burnt of the man every year over massive bonfires.

We went to the small town of Ottery St. Mary to celebrate Fireworks night and was treated to a one-of-a-kind experience. The first event was a gigantic bonfire with an effigy of Guy Fawkes hanging over it. Everyone watched and finally cheered while the figure caught fire and slowly burnt. Then a visitor heads to one of the many congested streets in which locals make up teams of 5 or 6 and compete in keeping a tar barrel aflame for as long as possible. All the while carrying it over their shoulders and running through the crowd. One can’t truly appreciate their lives until they are standing in front of a team of 5 gigantic men carrying a gigantic flaming barrel and has a mere second to figure out whether leaping left or right will lead them to safety. Katy had a close call once and wound up on the ground crawling out of harm’s way. We knew what the idea of the event was but nothing could truly prepare us for the crazy tradition. In the video clip we have posted at the bottom, you can see our friend leaning up close for a good shot of the inside of the barrel. However, he almost catches his head on fire when they re-ignite the barrel with lighter fluid. A scary moment for all of us.