Lord Mayor's Show and Fireworks

I didn't get to see any firework displays this year- it's not much fun on your own and to be honest I didn't know how Bella and Murphy would cope with Bonfire Night, the cats are bad enough, they hate the load bangs and usually hide away in the one room in the house without a window - the bathroom. So being the responsible pet owner that I am I stayed in - boring but honorable.

Last weekend was the City of London's Lord Mayor's Show and as Dave was already 'darn sarf' I thought I would join him for a few days so that we could spend Saturday in London watching the show in the morning and the grand firework display over the Thames at 5 o'clock.

I have loved the Lord Mayor's Show ever since I was a 19 year old refugee from the North and would stand in Fleet Street or the Strand and watch the procession. One year we had a special treat when the bank had a family day in their Fleet Street branch so that we could watch the show in comfort. Dave invited my Mum and Dad down and they had a wonderful time. The staff had prepared a buffet lunch and had positioned seats by the windows on the first floor to give us a grandstand view.

After Dave left Fleet Street were were reduced to standing with the hoi polloi but this year we thought that we deserved a treat and booked seats in the grandstand by St Paul's Cathedral. The parade was as good as ever, the floats were colourful, the bands musical and the servicemen and woman a credit to the TA and reserve forces. But my god did it rain - it was torrential but we're British and a little thing like a monsoon isn't going to stop our parade or as a young American guy sitting behind me said 'only the Brits would sit in the rain to watch a parade and cheer every time a soldier marches past' - couldn't have put it better myself!

Unfortunately we were soaked to the skin and rather than catch our death walking about all afternoon we decided to go back to the flat to change into warm dry clothes and go out for dinner rather than hang about for the firework display.

No fireworks for me this year then - oh well there's always next year.